Study Help
Essay Questions
1. What is the source of the title All the King's Men? What significance does this title have? Why do you think Warren used this title rather than the title of the play from which the novel was developed (Proud Flesh)?
2. What are the two major roles that Jack Burden plays in this novel? How are these roles tied together? Is the novel unified?
3. At the end of Chapter Nine, Willie Stark makes this remark on his deathbed: "It might have been all different, Jack. . . . You got to believe that." What might have been different? How does this statement comment on Willie's past actions? Do you think he would have changed had he lived?
4. Discuss the relationship between Jack Burden and Judge Irwin. What is the emotional and thematic significance of withholding their true relationship to one another until so late in the novel?
5. The Cass Mastern episode may at first seem to be simply a digression in the novel, although it is not. What role does the Cass Mastern episode play in the novel? How does it comment on other actions and on other characters in the novel?
6. Discuss the irony of the statement at the end of Chapter Five: "That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth."
7. What are the elements in the character of Willie Stark? It has been said that he has created his own end. Is this an accurate statement? Why, or why not?
8. Of the many characters, which do you find the most believable? Why? The most sympathetic? Why?
9. How well does this novel fulfill the requirements of tragedy in the Aristotelian sense of the term?
10. Discuss the character of Adam Stanton. Is his assassination of Willie Stark believable? Is it a true outgrowth of his personality? Why?
11. Discuss the character of Anne Stanton. Is her affair with Willie Stark believable? How might it be related to her character, to her beliefs about the past, and to her experiences in life?
12. Compare and contrast Anne Stanton, Sadie Burke, and Lucy Stark, the three primary women in Willie Stark's life.
13. What are some of the major themes in this novel? How are these themes developed? In what ways are they related to one another?
14. In an introduction to one edition of All the King's Men, Warren comments that "the politician rises to power because of the faculty of fulfilling vicariously the secret needs of others, and in the process . . . discovers his own emptiness." How does this idea apply to Willie Stark?
15. Jack tells the reader at the end of the novel that soon he and Anne will go out into "the awful responsibility of Time." What is this "awful responsibility"? How has Jack arrived at an understanding and acceptance of responsibility?
16. What is Jack Burden's theory of the "Great Twitch"? How does he apply it to the events in his life? What events in his life have contributed to his acceptance of this idea?
17. Do you find Judge Irwin's suicide a brave act or a cowardly one? Why?
18. Discuss the strength and weakness of Chapter Ten as a fitting conclusion to the novel. Do you find it convincing?