All The Kings Men

All The Kings Men

All The Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren is a novel of how Jack Burden finds himself. It was a long, political road for Jack and it was the letters of an old relative that gave him a new perspective of the world. It confused him at first, but in the passage I chose you can see what Jack’s burden really is.

Cass Mastern was an old relative of Jack’s. Jack was doing his history dissertation on his life. During his life he spent time with a couple he was friends with. He slept with his friends wife and when he got word of this he killed himself. Cass Mastern felt terrible for what he had caused and enlisted in the confederate army. He made sure he stayed a private, and would not fight for he had killed his friend and must take punishment for his actions. He later was wounded and died from that wound.

Jack was shocked at Cass’s life. This shock was because “Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned the world is all one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. Your happy foot or your gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God’s eye, and the fangs dripping.”

Jack couldn’t accept the truth that your actions effect everyone and everything around you not just yourself. Even when these actions are meant for good, but they may have a bad effect on someone else and things can come back to haunt you. Jack had a very pessimistic view of the world. He would not accept any responsibility for his actions. He left school with out a care, left his wife without a care, and was often very rude when he was back home.