Response to All The King's Men

      

For the past few weeks we have been reading and analyzing Robert Penn Warren’s novel, All the Kings Men. One of major themes throughout the novel is knowledge versus ignorance, which is a very controversial idea in this book. Jack the main character struggles with concept of truth and fact, throughout the novel he chooses to stay focused on facts rather than truth. While reading this I was intrigued to figure out what was the difference between the two and does knowledge affect how we define the truth and how we define fact. Jack’s main occupation in the novel is professional dirt searcher for the Governor of Louisiana. The whole novel is told through Jack’s flashbacks of the time he worked with Willie and the whole time it seemed he was searching for the truth. Power is also assimilated to how much knowledge someone has.

As seen in the last three chapters of the novel, truth is one of the leading causes for the down fall of Willie, Adam, and Judge Irwin. The entire novel highlights the downfall of man and how truths build up and when released all at once can lead to destruction. Many of the outside characters were attracted to Willie because of the knowledge he has, but he never accepts responsibility for the problems that his knowledge causes. I think when Jack refers to knowledge it’s almost like it’s a tangible object that one has to win, in reference to the title Knowledge is the crown owned by the king (the crown goes on your head and knowledge is inside of it: HA!) Is knowledge the truth that lead to Willie’s down fall? Well in my opinion I belief it isn’t the direct truth that caused his downfall, it’s his ability to reveal that truth is what caused his demise. Ultimately his true demise was caused by him hiding his and Anne’s affair from Adam, but throughout the novel Willie is also forced to conceal the truth from his voters. (ex: hiding his divorce from Lucy, concealing the truth about Tom and his baby mama)  Many of the minor characters were attracted to the false fisad, which gave Willie more power and likeable. The same goes for the Judge, he had been keeping his secret reimbursement with Mac Murphy, but he was seen as attractive to many of the minor characters.

Does power really relate to knowledge or is ignorance bliss when it comes to politics? Willie’s power was merely based off of the ignorance of society and the linage he had to make mistakes and not have society realize that he had made a mistake. But within the center of politics knowledge holds the power to control the entire dynamics within policies and constituencies. So can power be dictate by ignorance. This novel presents the idea the ignorance is needed for knowledge to flourish. Knowledge is definitely a type of power because it can definitely be used to influence and attract people towards one’s beliefs.