Iida Post #4

The revelations surrounding Judge Irwin and his death all tie into the theory of The Spider Web that Jack comes up with earlier on in All the King’s Men, that anything you do will come back to haunt you, that you can never escape the stern-eyed judge which is time.  At the beginning of this section in the book, the reader already knows about Judge Irwin’s past, how he took a bribe and, in doing so, helped kill Mr. Littlepaugh. However, when Jack goes over to Judge Irwin’s house in search of the truth, both Jack and the reader are hoping that something new will be found out, that the Judge, who is such an upright figure in the rest of the story, will have some sort of redeeming characteristic, but there is none. “You know, sometimes-for a long time at a stretch-it’s like it hadn’t happened. Not to me. Maybe to somebody else, but not to me. Then I remember, and when I first remember I say, no, it could not have happened to me…But it did.” (p 482-483). But because of this action the Judge took a long time ago, he was going to have to pay. The laws of the world in this book are harsh and unmoving. The Judge had to pay, but not without one last kick, to keep the circle going around and around like clockwork. Jack finds out the new complication in the story at the same time he finds out about the Judge’s death. His mother is the one who tells him. “’You killed him, you killed him.’ ‘Killedd who?’ I demanded, shaking her. ‘Your father,’ she said ‘your father and oh! you killed him.’” (p 487). This is when Jack learns the truth about himself and the truth about the ugly job he was sent to do, the truth of what he has done. He doesn’t take it too much to heart, however, protecting himself through the knowledge that it was predestined. “Judge Irwin had killed Mortimer L. Littlepaugh. But Mortimer had killed Judge Irwin in the end. Or had it been Mortimer? Perhaps I had done it…Mortimer had killed Judge Irwin because Judge Irwin had killed him, and I had killed Judge Irwin because Judge Irwin had created me.” (p 492). Jack’s theory of the spiderweb is a theory of destiny and chain reactions and helpless people along for the ride that their lives will take. Judge Irwin is just another one of the characters helplessly entwined in the spiderweb of life, and Jack is just another blind, helpless player in that game. However, Judge Irwin’s death is a reminder to everyone that something is wrong and that something needs to change, that if life continues the way it is they will all be heading for destruction, through themselves or others. This is Jack’s spiderweb, a spiderweb that encompasses them all without their notice, binding them to lifelong, inevitable pacts.