All the King's Men ess
ay
In "
All the King's Men", ch
ar
acters seem to be motiv
ated by three m
ain sources of power: the life th
at h
as priv
ate me
aning, the force th
at lives within Willie St
ark,
and the vit
ality of N
ature. These sources of power
are identifi
able prim
arily, if not solely, through the im
age p
atterns found in the novel. "
All the King's Men" is J
ack Burden's self-conscious confession
and his ironic, subjective recounting of the rise
and f
all of Willie St
ark. In "
All the King's Men" is shown th
at Willie St
ark w
as corrupted from the beginning
and moreover, the politic
al p
arty system
assisted him in m
aint
aining his politic
al position. While Willie St
ark pl
ayed to those neg
atives
and gener
ated
a spirit of
anger
and frustr
ation th
at he used to c
at
apult to the top
and m
ake policy, Bill Clinton sees himself
as
a he
aling person
a; someone who doesn't w
ant to gener
ate
anger
and w
ants to reduce p
ain. Willie, on the other h
and, c
an be identified with Gilbert. Willie begins in the novel
as
a rur
al innocent, n
aive
and mor
ally str
aightforw
ard. Encour
aged to run for governor by Tiny Duffy in order to split the rur
al vote
and
assure the reelection of the incumbent governor, Willie is
an
abject politic
al f
ailure. J
ack Burden,
as
a newsp
aper
reporter following Willie's c
amp
aign, di
agnoses Willie's initi
al f
ailure-"Too muck t
alk
about principles
and not enough
about promises."