The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 4 страница
The result was All the King'sMen, Warren's best and most acclaimed book. First published in 1946, Allthe King's Men is one of the best literary documents dealing with the American South during the Great Depression. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and was adapted into a movie that won an Academy Award in 1949.
All the King's Men focuses on the lives of Willie Stark, an upstart farm boy who rises through sheer force of will to become Governor of an unnamed Southern state during the 1930s, and Jack Burden, the novel's narrator, a cynical scion of the state's political aristocracy who uses his abilities as a historical researcher to help Willie blackmail and control his enemies.
The novel deals with the large question of the responsibility individuals bear for their actions within the turmoil of history, and it is perhaps appropriate that the impetus of the novel's story comes partly from real historical occurrences.
Jack Burden is entirely a creation of Robert Penn Warren, but there are a number of important parallels between Willie Stark and Huey Long, who served Louisiana as both Governor and Senator from 1928 until his death in 1935.
Like Huey Long, Willie Stark is an uneducated farm boy who passed the state bar exam; like Huey Long, he rises to political power in his state by instituting liberal reform designed to help the state's poor farmers. And like Huey Long, Willie is assassinated at the peak of his power by a doctor Dr. Adam Stanton in Willie's case, Dr. Carl A. Weiss in Long's. (Unlike Willie, however, Long was assassinated after becoming a Senator, and was in fact in the middle of challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.)
Characters
Jack Burden -- Willie Stark's political right-hand man, the narrator of the novel and in many ways its protagonist. Jack comes from a prominent family (the town he grew up in, Burden's Landing, was named for his ancestors), and knows many of the most important people in the state.
Despite his aristocratic background, Jack allies himself with the liberal, amoral Governor Stark, to the displeasure of his family and friends. He uses his considerable skills as a researcher to uncover the secrets of Willie's political enemies. Jack was once married to Lois Seager, but has left her by the time of the novel. Jack's main characteristics are his intelligence and his curious lack of ambition; he seems to have no agency of his own, and for the most part he is content to take his direction from Willie. Jack is also continually troubled by the question of motive and responsibility in history: he quit working on his PhD thesis in history when he decided he could not comprehend Cass Mastern's motives. He develops the Great Twitch theory to convince himself that no one can be held responsible for anything that happens. During the course of the novel, however, Jack rejects the Great Twitch theory and accepts the idea of responsibility.
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Willie Stark -- Jack Burden's boss, who rises from poverty to become the governor of his state and its most powerful political figure. Willie takes control of the state through a combination of political reform (he institutes sweeping liberal measures designed to tax the rich and ease the burden on the state's many poor farmers) and underhanded guile (he blackmails and bullies his enemies into submission). While Jack is intelligent and inactive, Willie is essentially all motive power and direction. The extent of his moral philosophy is his belief that everyone and everything is bad, and that moral action involves making goodness out of the badness.
Willie is married to Lucy Stark, with whom he has a son, Tom. But his voracious sexual appetite leads him into a number of afiairs, including one with Sadie Burke and one with Anne Stanton. Willie is murdered by Adam Stanton toward the end of the novel.
Anne Stanton -- Jack Burden's first love, Adam Stanton's sister, and, for a time, Willie Stark's mistress. The daughter of Governor Stanton, Anne is raised to believe in a strict moral code, a belief which is threatened and nearly shattered when Jack shows her proof of her father's wrongdoing.
Adam Stanton -- A brilliant surgeon and Jack Burden's closest childhood friend. Anne Stanton's brother. Jack persuades Adam to put aside his moral reservations about Willie and become director of the new hospital Willie is building, and Adam later cares for Tom Stark after his injury. But two revelations combine to shatter Adam's worldview: he learns that his father illegally protected Judge Irwin after he took a bribe, and he learns that his sister has become Willie Stark's lover. Driven mad with the knowledge, Adam assassinates Willie in the lobby of the Capitol towards the end of the novel.
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Judge Montague Irwin -- A prominent citizen of Burden's Landing and a former state Attorney General; also a friend to the Scholarly Attorney and a father figure to Jack. When Judge Irwin supports one of Willie's political enemies in a Senate election, Willie orders Jack to dig up some information on the judge. Jack discovers that his old friend accepted a bribe from the American Electric Power Company in 1913 to save his plantation. (In return for the money, the judge dismissed a case against the Southern Belle Fuel Company, a sister corporation to American Electric.) When he confronts the judge with this information, the judge commits suicide; when Jack learns of the suicide from his mother, he also learns that Judge Irwin was his real father.
Sadie Burke -- Willie Stark's secretary, and also his mistress. Sadie has been with Willie from the beginning, and believes that she made him what he is. Despite the fact that he is a married man, she becomes extremely jealous of his relationships with other women, and they often have long, passionate fights. Sadie is tough, cynical, and extremely vulnerable; when Willie announces that he is leaving her to go back to Lucy, she tells Tiny Dufiy in a fit of rage that Willie is sleeping with Anne Stanton. Tiny tells Adam Stanton, who assassinates Willie. Believing herself to be responsible for Willie's death, Sadie checks into a sanitarium. .
Tiny Dufiy -- Lieutenant-Governor of the state when Willie is assassinated. Fat, obsequious, and untrustworthy, Tiny swallows Willie's abuse and con- tempt for years, but finally tells Adam Stanton that Willie is sleeping with Anne. When Adam murders Willie, Tiny becomes Governor. Sugar-Boy O'Sheean -- Willie Stark's driver, and also his bodyguard--
Sugar-Boy is a crack shot with a .38 special and a brilliant driver. A stuttering Irishman, Sugar-Boy follows Willie blindly.
Lucy Stark -- Willie's long-sufiering wife, who is constantly disappointed by her husband's failure to live up to her moral standards. Lucy eventually leaves Willie to live at her sister's poultry farm. They are in the process of reconciling when Willie is murdered.
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Tom Stark -- Willie's arrogant, hedonistic son, a football star for the state university. Tom lives a life of drunkenness and promiscuity before he breaks his neck in a football accident. Permanently paralyzed, he dies of pneumonia shortly thereafter. Tom is accused of impregnating Sibyl Frey, whose child is adopted by Lucy at the end of the novel.
Jack's mother -- A beautiful, "famished-cheeked" woman from Arkansas, Jack's mother is brought back to Burden's Landing by the Scholarly Attorney, but falls in love with Judge Irwin and begins an afiair with him; Jack is a product of that afiair. After the Scholarly Attorney leaves her, she marries a succession of men (the Tycoon, the Count, the Young Executive). Jack's realization that she is capable of love--and that she really loved Judge Irwin-- helps him put aside his cynicism at the end of the novel.
Sam MacMurfee -- Willie's main political enemy within the state's Democratic Party, and governor before Willie. After Willie crushes him in the gubernatorial election, MacMurfee continues to control the Fourth District, from which he plots ways to claw his way back into power.
Ellis Burden -- The man whom Jack believes to be his father for most of the book, before learning his real father is Judge Irwin. After discovering his wife's afiair with the judge, the "Scholarly Attorney" (as Jack characterizes him) leaves her. He moves to the state capital where he attempts to conduct a Christian ministry for the poor and the unfortunate.
Theodore Murrell -- The "Young Executive," as Jack characterizes him; Jack's mother's husband for most of the novel.
Governor Joel Stanton -- Adam and Anne's father, governor of the state when Judge Irwin was Attorney General. Protects the judge after he takes the bribe to save his plantation.
Hugh Miller -- Willie Stark's Attorney General, an honorable man who resigns following the Byram White scandal.
Joe Harrison -- Governor of the state who sets Willie up as a dummy candidate to split the MacMurfee vote, and thereby enables Willie's entrance onto the political stage. When Willie learns how Harrison has treated him, he withdraws from the race and campaigns for MacMurfee, who wins the election. By the time Willie crushes MacMurfee in the next election, Harrison's days of political clout are over.
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Mortimer L. Littlepaugh -- The man who preceded Judge Irwin as counsel for the American Electric Power Company in the early 1900s. When Judge Irwin took Littlepaugh's job as part of the bribe, Littlepaugh confronted Governor Stanton about the judge's illegal activity. When the governor protected the judge, Littlepaugh committed suicide.
Miss Lily Mae Littlepaugh -- Mortimer Littlepaugh's sister, an old spiritual medium who sells her brother's suicide note to Jack, giving him the proof he needs about Judge Irwin and the bribe.
Gummy Larson -- MacMurfee's most powerful supporter, a wealthy businessman. Willie is forced to give Larson the building contract to the hospital so that Larson will call MacMurfee off about the Sibyl Frey controversy, and thereby preserve Willie's chance to go to the Senate.
Lois Seager -- Jack's sexy first wife, whom he leaves when he begins to
perceive her as a person rather than simply as a machine for gratifying his
desires.
Byram B. White -- The State Auditor during Willie's first term as governor. His acceptance of graft money propels a scandal that eventually leads to an impeachment attempt against Willie. Willie protects White and blackmails his enemies into submission, a decision which leads to his estrangement from Lucy and the resignation of Hugh Miller.
Hubert Coffee -- A slimy MacMurfee employee who tries to bribe Adam Stanton into giving the hospital contract to Gummy Larson.
Sibyl Frey -- A young girl who accuses Tom Stark of having gotten her pregnant; Tom alleges that Sibyl has slept with so many men, she could not possibly know he was the father of her child. Marvin Frey -- Sibyl Frey's father, who threatens Willie with a paternity suit. (He is being used by MacMurfee.)
Cass Mastern -- The brother of Jack's grandmother. During the middle of the nineteenth century, Cass had an afiair with Annabelle Trice, the wife of his friend Duncan. After Duncan's suicide, Annabelle sold a slave, Phebe; Cass tried to track down Phebe, but failed. He became an abolitionist, but fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, during which he was killed. Jack tries to use his papers as the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation, but walked away from the project when he was unable to understand Cass Mastern's motivations.
Gilbert Mastern -- Cass Mastern's wealthy brother.
Annabelle Trice -- Cass Mastern's lover, the wife of Duncan Trice. When the slave Phebe brings her Duncan's wedding ring following his suicide, Annabelle says that she cannot bear the way Phebe looked at her, and sells her.
Duncan Trice -- Cass Mastern's hedonistic friend in Lexington, Annabelle Trice's husband. When he learns that Cass has had an afiair with Annabelle, Duncan takes off his wedding ring and shoots himself.
Phebe -- The slave who brings Annabelle Trice her husband's wedding ring following his suicide. As a result, Annabelle sells her.
Summary
All the King's Men is the story of the rise and fall of a political titan in the Deep South during the 1930s. Willie Stark rises from hardscrabble poverty to become governor of his state and its most powerful political figure; he blackmails and bullies his enemies into submission, and institutes a radical series of liberal reforms designed to tax the rich and ease the burden of the state's poor farmers. He is beset with enemies--most notably Sam MacMurfee, a defeated former governor who constantly searches for ways to undermine Willie's power--and surrounded by a rough mix of political allies and hired thugs, from the bodyguard Sugar-Boy O'Sheean to the fat, obsequious Tiny Dufiy.
All the King's Men is also the story of Jack Burden, the scion of one of the state's aristocratic dynasties, who turns his back on his genteel upbringing and becomes Willie Stark's right-hand man. Jack uses his considerable talents as a historical researcher to dig up the unpleasant secrets of Willie's enemies, which are then used for purposes of blackmail. Cynical and lacking in ambition, Jack has walked away from many of his past interests--he left his dissertation in American History unfinished, and never managed to marry his first love, Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former governor of the state.
When Willie asks Jack to look for skeletons in the closet of Judge Irwin, a father figure from Jack's childhood, Jack is forced to confront his ideas concerning consequence, responsibility, and motivation. He discovers that Judge Irwin accepted a bribe, and that Governor Stanton covered it up; the resulting blackmail attempt leads to Judge Irwin's suicide. It also leads to Adam Stanton's decision to accept the position of director of the new hospital Willie is building, and leads Anne to begin an afiair with Willie.
When Adam learns of the afiair, he murders Willie in a rage, and Jack leaves politics forever. Willie's death and the circumstances in which it occurs force Jack to rethink his desperate belief that no individual can ever be responsible for the consequences of any action within the chaos and tumult of history and time. Jack marries Anne Stanton and begins working on a book about Cass Mastern, the man whose papers he had once tried to use as the source for his failed dissertation in American History.
Chapter 1
Summary
Jack Burden describes driving down Highway 58 with his boss, Governor Willie Stark, in the Boss's big black Cadillac--Sugar-Boy is driving, and in the car with them were the Boss's wife Lucy, son Tommy, and the Lieutenant Governor, Tiny Dufiy. Sugar-Boy drives them into Mason City, where Willie is going to pose for a press photo with his father, who lives on a nearby farm. The Cadillac is followed by a car full of press men and photographers, overseen by Willie's secretary, Sadie Burke. It is summer, 1936, and scorching hot outside.
In Mason City, Willie immediately attracts an adoring throng of people. The group goes inside the drugstore, where Doc pours them glasses of Coke. The crowd pressures Willie for a speech, but he declines, saying he's just come to see his "pappy". He then delivers an efiective impromptu speech on the theme of not delivering a speech, saying he doesn't have to stump for votes on his day off. The crowd applauds, and the group drives out to the Stark farm.
On the way, Jack remembers his first meeting with Willie, in 1922, when Jack was a reporter for the Chronicle and Willie was only the County Treasurer of Mason County. Jack had gone to the back room of Slade's pool hall to get some information from deputy-sherifi Alex Michel and Tiny Dufiy (then the Tax Assessor, and an ally of then-Governor Harrison). While he was there, Dufiy tried to bully Willie into drinking a beer, which Willie claimed not to want, instead ordering an orange soda. Dufiy ordered Slade to bring Willie a beer, and Slade said that he only served alcohol to men who wanted to drink it. He brought Willie the orange soda. When Prohibition was repealed after Willie's rise to power, Slade was one of the first men to get a liquor license; he got a lease at an exceptional location, and was now a rich man.
At the farm, Willie and Lucy pose for a picture with spindly Old Man Stark and his dog. Then the photographers have Willie pose for a picture in his old bedroom, which still contains all his schoolbooks. Toward sunset, Sugar-Boy is out shooting cans with his .38 special, and Jack goes outside for a drink from his ask and a look at the sunset. As he leans against the fence, Willie approaches him and asks for a drink. Then Sadie Burke runs up to them with a piece of news, which she reveals only after Willie stops teasing her: Judge Irwin has just endorsed Callahan, a Senate candidate running against Willie's man, Masters.
After dinner at the Stark farm, Willie announces that he, Jack, and Sugar-Boy will be going for a drive. He orders Sugar-Boy to drive the Cadillac to Burden's Landing, more than a hundred miles away. Jack grew up in Burden's Landing, which was named for his ancestors, and he complains about the long drive this late at night. As they approach Jack's old house, he thinks about his mother lying inside with Theodore Murrell--not Jack's first stepfather. And he thinks about Anne and Adam Stanton, who lived nearby and used to play with him as a child. He also thinks about Judge Irwin, who lives near the Stanton and Burden places, and who was a father figure to Jack after his own father left. Jack tells Willie that Judge Irwin won't scare easily, and inwardly hopes that what he says is true.
The three men arrive at Judge Irwin's, where Willie speaks insouciantly and insolently to the gentlemanly old judge. Judge Irwin insults Jack for being employed by such a man, and tells Willie that he endorsed Callahan because of some damning information he had been given about Masters. Willie says that it would be possible to find dirt on anyone, and advises the judge to retract his endorsement, lest some dirt should turn up on him. He heavily implies that Judge Irwin would lose his position as a judge. Judge Irwin angrily throws the men out of his house, and on the drive back to Mason City, Willie orders Jack to find some dirt on the judge, and to "make it stick."
Writing in 1939, three years after that scene, Jack re ects that Masters--who did get elected to the Senate--is now dead, and Adam Stanton is dead, and Judge Irwin is dead, and Willie himself is dead: Willie, who told Jack to find some dirt on Judge Irwin and make it stick. And Jack remembers: "Little Jackie made it stick, all right."
Chapter 2 Summary
Jack Burden remembers the years during which Willie Stark rose to power. While Willie was Mason County Treasurer, he became embroiled in a controversy over the building contract for the new school. The head of the city council awarded the contract to the business partner of one of his relatives, no doubt receiving a healthy kickback for doing so. The political machine attempted to run this contract over Willie, but Willie insisted that the contract be awarded to the lowest bidder. The local big-shots responded by spreading the story that the lowest bidder would import black labor to construct the building, and, Mason County being redneck country, the people sided against Willie, who was trounced in the next election. Jack Burden covered all this in the Chronicle, which sided with Willie.
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