Post #4

In this new portion of text Robert Penn Warren was able to both address more clearly and answer a large number of questions that had really been up in the air while reading the previous portions of the book, like who Jacks father was. But this way of tying up all the loose ends in a reasonably condensed period of time created a sense of organized chaos as Jack was forced to put the often difficult pieces of his world together in order to see the bigger picture. What these pieces revealed is just how much Jack seemed to rely on these relationships with both the Judge, who he discovers was his father, and the Boss, who it seems like he has developed a sort of brothership with. In one of the Willies last moments on earth jack visits him while he is sick in bed, "I stood up close to the bed and looked down at him, and tried to think of something to say. But my brain felt as juices as an old sponge left out in the sun. Then he said, in something a little better than a whisper, 'I wanted to see you Jack.' 'I wanted to see you, to, Boss'(556)". This show of true kindness and friendship towards one another and sort of indication of the relationship that was forged in the hot flame of Willies political career and the many hours that Jack and Willie spent together keeping it alive. When the Boss died the next morning it seemed to leave Jack in a sort of empty place, especially lacking a father figure in his life. Another relationship that seemed to be explored was Jacks relationship with the Judge. In the end it seemed Jack was the direct cause of the judges death. With Jack bringing back secrets from his past the judge felt as if he was forced him to take his own life in order to preserve his honor. But at the funeral when the levity of his actions actually occur to Jack he finds himself angry and sad because he is actually the cause of the death of his father, "Before I stopped, as a matter of fact, I found that I was not laughing at all but was weeping"(494). This show of sadness for a man whose relationship seemed to be taken for granted seems to show that there was more to the Jack-Judge relationship that met the eye, especially after he discovered that the judge was his father. In conclusion, this last bit of the book seems to be reserved for tying the whole book back together to the central idea, a task which was accomplished using great care and flawless diction/syntax.