“All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren (post 4): The philosophies of Jack Burden and Willie Stark may have multiple personality as their premise

Jack Burden’s personality is puzzlingly inconsistent. At times he is Stark’s ruthless agent, such as when he investigates and precipitates the suicide of a man he knew since childhood, and who turns out to have been his own biological father. At other times he is very empathic and sensitive to people’s feelings.

In the following passage, Burden seems to be spouting sophistry about reality, but he concludes by revealing what he is really talking about, his difficulty knowing his own true identity:

“…as we know, reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events. We seem to have a paradox: that the reality of an event, which is not real in itself, arises from other events which, likewise, in themselves are not real. But this only affirms what we must affirm: that direction is all. And only as we realize this do we live, for our own identity is dependent upon this principle” (1, p. 578).

In other words, his own sense of identity at any given time cannot be taken as his real identity, because his previous sense of identity and his future sense of identity may be different. For example, sometimes he is ruthless, but that is not necessarily his real identity, because other times he is very empathic and sensitive. His personality varies to a remarkable extent.

Willie Stark famously says that he never has to use fake evidence to blackmail somebody, because everyone has done something bad in their past, and you just have to dig it up. But another way of stating that basic idea is that everyone has a secret, alternate personality. (Everyone doesn’t, but fiction writers, judging by themselves, might think so.)

1. Robert Penn Warren. All the King’s Men [1946]. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996.