Yeakle Blog #4

All the King's Men draws its unique style from its defiance of the classic character development process. While the typical novel read in a high school English class follows a protagonist who experiences events that cause simple, explicable changes to their decidedly shallow characters, this novel weaves in and out through events that change characters in the shadows. Led astray by piling anecdotes and flashbacks, readers are kept hanging until the final parts of the book, when they suddenly realize the entire story has changed, and they wonder why they didn't notice it when it first happened. There are few static characters in All the King's Men, but their stories are written with such nuance that their development does not make itself too blaringly obvious. Jack Burden develops this way; not in a smooth line of bad to good, but in a rough, twisting journey of strange philosophies and genuinely weird events. We see his transformation most suddenly and clearly when he faces a reporter much like himself right after graduating reporting school, where Robert Penn Warren juxtapositions the old and new Jack Burden. "He was still there when I came up, a squirt with his hat over one eye and the camera hung round his neck like he was the nuts and a grin on his squirt-face." (p. 560) Jack's cynical tone is typical but ironic, as years before he had been in the place of the younger reporter. When the young reporter's comment hits a nerve, in moment where he would have previously fought with him, Jack walks away coldly. This shows that while his arrogant attitude prevailed, Jack's ability to let go of what other's thought was finally developing. By the end of the book, Jack has experienced another kind of revelation: the leaving of his mother and how it impacts his sense of self. When Jack's mother announces she have always loved Judge Irwin and is leaving her current husband, Jack is mildly surprised . This brings on a realization that his mother is not really who he has always thought she is, and the liberation of her definition causes a liberation of his own definition. "She gave me a new picture of herself, and that meant, in the end, a new picture of the world. [...] I could now accept the past which I had before felt was tainted and horrible. I could accept the past now because I could accept her and be at peace with her and myself." (p. 601) Robert Penn Warren's strength is his ability to hold off the satiating feeling of the resolution of a really dynamic character and yet maintain a plot and captive reader. Although Jack's development was skimped on until the end, his and the many characters' stories in All the King's Men are revealed and interwoven together in the concluding chapters of the book.