AtKM+Essays

**Sample Essay 1:** Willie Stark can be viewed as morally ambiguous in Robert Penn Warren’s //All the King’s Men//. Naive Cousin Willie is transformed into the political force known as the Boss. This transformation of character and its final product can be confusing to readers, especially relating to Willie’s complicated dance between right and wrong. He is not as cut and dry as some would like him to be. Willie can treat people like dogs at one time and be filled with compassion for the common people in another instance. His character dwells in the grey area between pure evil and pure good, allowing Warren’s readers to glimpse into the real world of politics and the realm of the human heart.  Willie’s sins and injustices are prevalent throughout the book and are easy to spot. His philosophy stems from the idea that man was conceived in sin and continues to stink until the grave. Since Willie is human, he sees no reason why he should be any different. His most grievous sins involve the way he treats his wife Lucy. The spotlight of attention is too much for the Boss and he uses this to fuel his desires sexually, keeping several mistresses during the course of the novel. Lucy becomes the symbol of innocence and simple, country virtues, as Willie sleeps around with no care for how it might affect his marriage personally. He only sees his actions in the way they will appear in his political life. Whatever he can accomplish under the table is fair game. Appearance is much more important than the reality of Willie’s depraved moral state in the political arena. The scene in which the Boss forces a man named Byram to write a letter of resignation because the man would not fawn to Willie is an excellent example of the way Willie uses people for personal gains. The Boss lambastes the man for trying to move up in the world and argues that he is less than human. The Boss is the Boss because no one can rise to his level in his own eyes. He is not corrupt in that he is drawn to money, but instead he is ingeniously obsessed with himself. Treating people unjustly is another result of Willie’s degrading morals.  The harsh way in which Willie conducts his business and arrogant way in which he conducts his extra-marital affairs stand in stark contrast to his benevolent motivations. The Willie seen in the first chapters cares about the little people of the state. He is disgusted by the corruption of a schoolhouse deal that resulted in children falling from a poorly constructed fire escape. Even when it is up to Willie to sign a deal for the building of his dream hospital, he refuses to strike a deal that will benefit him in a financial way. He would rather leave a legacy with a hospital run by the best doctor in the state, Adam Stanton. Willie rises in the political standings by promising better education and tax reform in his state. He believes this in his heart, and the crowd can see this as well. While the Boss is constantly involved in digging dirt on his opponents, he refuses to use a lie to bust them. The Boss says that the truth is always enough because there is always something. Is it noble that the Boss only accepts the truth? That is the question that the reader is forced to ask. It may be that the truth is more practical in the long run for Willie’s operations. Because Willie sees the world as a rotten and sinful place, he believes that the good must be shaped from the bad. He is the bad, but maybe he can be an instrument of something good in the end. The Willie Stark Hospital is the embodiment of this idea. It is built out of self-interest and through corrupt dealings, but the final product is something that will stand as a blessing to the state long after the Boss is dead.  With the conflicting views of Willie mixing in the mind of the reader, it must be decided how Willie’s nature adds to Warren’s picture of politics in an effort to reveal a deeper truth. Machiavelli stated that the ends justify the means. Sure, Willie has torn into his enemies out of drunken rage and personal pride and abandoned his morals at the expense of his saintly wife. The journey, in this case, is less important that the destination. The destination is what Willie accomplishes as Governor. By trying to take over the entire state, he got more done than his predecessors ever could. He knew that doing things the way people want you to will result in failure, so Willie broke a few eggs to make a tasty omelet. Warren is saying that each person struggles with right and wrong in his heart. This is apparent in Willie’s moral ambiguity. Because he is Governor, his actions are magnified and scrutinized. Jack Burden, a loyal servant to the Boss for his entire career, comes to the realization after the Boss’s death that Willie Stark was a good man. Willie was made up of a twisting fiber of good and evil that manifested itself in a moral ambiguity. Jack’s newly found philosophy favored the interpretation that Willie was a good man despite his shortcomings. The final verdict, however, is left to the reader. It is a personal interpretation to see which of the opposing sides of Willie prevails.

It is a horrible tendency of many men to drift through life as “morally ambiguous.” Never choosing sides, these specters of human beings never truly commit themselves to any situation, thought, or belief in their short lives. Simply not caring to take the burden of claiming a specific morality upon themselves, these “neutral Nates” are the ones that firmly believe in one thing. That one thing is the belief in nothing. Jack Burden, the narrator of All the King’s Men, prides himself in being a “neutral Nate” and is quite comfortable throughout the story as he lounges back in his pillow-like non-belief. No matter what Jack comes across throughout the story, whether it is political or relational, he stands firm in his “moral ambiguity.” Jack Burden is the one person in All the King’s Men who will always take a stand for nothing.
 * Sample Essay 2:**

The main theme of Robert Penn Warren’s infamous novel is dirty politics and how politicians become so filthy in the first place. The narrator, Jack Burden, watches the rise and fall of Willie “The Boss” Stark in the political world from a first-hand perspective. He casually observes the gradual corruption of a former country bumpkin but does nothing. “It is the way things are. It is all just a Great Twitch,” Jack would say. Only doing what is necessary to get by in the world, Jack is the epitome of lazy and has not ambition. Yet the one area in which he never grows slothful is his thoughtfulness. Jack loves to analyze the actions of others as a “historian” would. It is from this perspective that he is able to process and pick-apart his own notion of what life is about. Scrolling through new thoughts in his mind almost as fast as a librarian scrolls through the Dewey Decimal System in her mind, Jack changes his opinion as it suits him when it concerns politics. When his family attack’s The Boss’ politics, the loyal Jack is ready to throw out a scathing comment in defense of his employer. Yet, when the Boss calls for Jack to interrogate an old friend, Judge Irwin, Jack firmly refuses as first. It seems throughout the story that Jack wants, deep down, to be politically moral and just. However, his job for the Boss and his totally lackadaisical attitude towards what is going on in the world limits the actual passion that Jack is able to muster for politics. “The Great Twitch controls everything in life. Therefore, it is pointless for me to try and take a stance concerning anything because life is all random,” Jack might claim. Jack Burden is the average man who does not vote and could care less about who wins any election because there is nothing “in it” for him, or so he believes. He is not good or evil for not choosing sides. Jack simply does what he’s told without any regard whether the politics backing his actions are right or wrong. This sometimes causes painful results. Yet, he does not even begin to change his moral philosophy concerning politics until the end of the novel. He never thinks. He most definitely does not vote. He just does.

It is difficult to maintain relational neutrality in life because emotions always seem to get in the way. Jack determines from a very young age that he is not going to get caught up in the “Itch” of love, the brotherhood of adult friendships, or the struggle to maintain a relationship with his mother. He feels that growing attached and sprouting emotions that connect him to people is pointless because all people are crappy and they will all eventually screw you over. He does not try to purposely hurt people or destroy relationships but at the same time he does not pursue relationships for their benefits either. Although there are many that have remained loyal to Jack over the years, he “knows” that they will just hurt him in the end and so he has no qualms about severing those relationships. He cuts himself off from Anne Stanton because she was too young to understand love and broke his heart. Anne has tried to remain a devoted friend to Jack but he had none of that! Jack cuts himself off from Adam Stanton because he was just a “Childhood” Friend, which is, according to Jack, a friendship doomed to end as soon as the companions reached adulthood. Jack has also cut himself off from his own mother, even though she has never done anything but love him. He just does not want to be forced to deal with the relational baggage that comes with knowing his mother, in the form of her many husbands. Jack never tries to hurt these people because he knows that they are not consciously trying to hurt him. However, more often than not, his relational neutrality destroys the relationships anyways. Jack is not evil because he makes this mistake, but he is certainly not good for making it either. Jack simply cannot understand that it is impossible to remain a “Neutral Nate” when it comes to friends and family. These ties garner emotion and emotion is never neutral.

If Jack Burden is a country he is Switzerland. Never taking a stance on anything, Jack remains “morally ambiguous” throughout Robert Penn Warren’s tale of greed, lust, and filth simply because he does not care enough to lean either way. He does not lean towards the evil and greed of the political world because he feels that it is messed up in some way but at the same time he feels that the gentility of a “righteous” life will only cause him pain as well. Therefore, Jack is Switzerland. Yet, without Jack’s ambiguity in All the King’s Men the story would not be portrayed in such a thorough and thoughtful way. Robert Penn Warren brilliantly develops his narrator in such as way as to enable readers to see “both sides of the coin” through Jack’s eyes. Just as a case is defined more clearly when a Judge remains morally ambiguous during a trial, the story of Willie Stark is able to unfold beautifully and clearly because of Jack Burden’s moral ambiguity when viewing the events that occur in the tale. Whether the issues concerned politics, relationships, or anything else in the realm of Willie Stark and All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren crafted a meticulous and brilliant story through the eyes of Jack Burden. Warren’s “Neutral Nate” seems to be a Swiss man.

“Ambition, love, fear, money,” Jack Burden thinks to himself, “The different factors that can motivate a man to step over the line.” In Robert Penn Warren’s novel //All the King’s Men//, Jack faces many moral dilemmas. While pondering what could have motivated Judge Irwin to make an immoral choice, he unknowingly reveals four factors that influence his morals—or rather, lack therof. Jack burden’s experiences with ambition, love, fear, and money reveal his moral ambiguity.  Ambition is something that Jack Burden lacks. He does not seem to have any overriding hopes or aspirations during the beginning of the story. For example, when the newspaper that he writes for asks him to support MacMurfee, Jack quits his job but then does not know what to do with himself, entering the period of “the Great Sleep.” His morals are ambiguous. He does know that he supports Willie Stark, but he does not know how to let that support manifest itself in his actions. Therefore, he simply devotes himself obsequiously to Willie. Willie, in contrast, is a man of high determination. He rejects the idea of morality, believing that good things can be done only by immoral people because everyone is immoral. He lets blackmail, bribery, and corruption pervade his political reign; hence, his evil deeds also take over Jack’s life. Jack’s moral ambiguity leads him to let someone else’s immorality govern his actions. Jack’s resort to Willie for a source of ideals is significant to the plot of the story because it eventually leads him to find dirt on Judge Irwin, his own father, which causes Irwin to commit suicide.  Jack’s experiences with love are pretty clear-cut: he has always loved Anne Stanton. However, his indistinct morals cause Anne to reject him in favor of Willie. Anne refuses to marry Jack despite his pleading. She despises his lack of confidence and ideals. She therefore turns to Willie, sleeping with him even though he is married. Jack’s unclear morals cause Anne’s significant, plot-altering choice; if he had had ambition and clear values like Willie Stark, Anne probably would have married him.  Jack’s fear of responsibility holds him back from having determination and distinct values. This fear also causes him to create vague life theories that prevent him from having clear morals. His first ambiguous theory is Idealism: if he ignores something, then it does not exist. This indistinct theory is paradoxical; if he chooses to ignore a person or an idea, then he obviously knows that the person or idea exists. Because this theory is so paradoxical, it muddles his morals. If he faces a dilemma, he can just ignore the morals involved by pretending that they do not exist. This idea plays out in his choice to find dirt on Judge Irwin. He loves the judge and does not want to ruin his reputation, but he chooses to ignore these morals. His choice to ignore his morals reveals that he is truly unsure of what he values; his morals are ambiguous. Later in the story, Jack replaces Idealism with his “Great Twitch” theory: humans are merely machines, doing what they must do but having no say in the matter. This theory is even less clear than the first. For one thing, he is choosing to believe this theory. If he were just a machine, carrying out orders from a higher power, he would not have known that he was just a machine, and he would not have been able to choose what he believed. He does eventually realize that his theories were actually excuses to accept individual responsibility, finally realizing his morals, but for a vast portion of the book he chooses to create vague theories in his mind so that he cannot figure out what his morals are.  Jack does take a moral stance on money: he knows that money is not the reason that he works for Willie. However, this knowledge muddles his values even more; he does not know why he works for Mr. Stark. The Boss tells him “that’s just the way you are,” further confusing Jack’s about his values. He cannot figure out why he makes the choices that he makes because he does not know what his morals are. If Jack had just taken a stance on something and realized his morals, the whole story would have been different. He either would not have blackmailed his father, or he would have not felt guilty about doing so. Anne Stanton would have married him because he would have had confidence. Adam Stanton would not have killed Willie because Anne would not have slept with him, so Sugar-Boy would not have killed Adam. However, because it takes this rejection and these deaths for Jack to discover his morals, the novel is dark and cynical. Jack’s moral ambiguity causes him to make significant choices in the course of the story, and he later regrets those choices. In the end, however, he does discover his true beliefs by figuring out that he values responsibility. Jack burden learns to take responsibility for his actions. Even though his previous moral ambiguity has already caused multiple deaths, his moral realization enables him to marry Anne Stanton, an optimistic twist to a cynical story.
 * Sample Essay 2:**