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All The King's Men: History's Importance - Term Papers

All The King's Men: History's Importance

Throughout All the King's Men, history plays an important role in the
motivations and lives of all the characters. History's importance is most
noticeable, not surprisingly, in the story main characters - Willie Stark
and Jack Burden - whose lives focus on and, in some cases, depend upon
history and how they relate themselves to it. While Willie Stark views
history as a tool with which to manipulate people for his own ends, an
attitude resulting in his own destruction, Jack Burden's view of history
changes over time and eventually allows him to accept his relationship to
the past and, therefore, present. Since each man has such a differing view
it is no wonder that history becomes ...

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on it and made you and me and George Washington
and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you
do with the dirt."1 In this case, Stark is referring to the past as dirt -
something to be used in many ways. The way he chooses to use it of course
is as blackmail; "Then he would lean suddenly forward, at the man, and say,
not slow and easy now, `God damn you, do you know what I can do to you?'
And he could too. For he had the goods."2 Thus history is important to
Stark as the device by which he maintains power.

Both Stark and Burden use history differently according to the way it
figures into their lives. To Stark, ultimate power being paramount, history
is a thing to be used in the manipulation of others to achieve his own ends.
For example, when Judge Irwin decides to endorse Murphy's candidate for the
senate, rather than Stark's, Stark views it as the perfect occasion for the
manipulation of the judge through blackmail, both directly and ...

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All The King's Men: History's Importance. (2007, January 12). Retrieved February 21, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/All-The-Kings-Men-Historys-Importance/58596

"All The King's Men: History's Importance." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 12 Jan. 2007. Web. 21 Feb. 2026. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/All-The-Kings-Men-Historys-Importance/58596>

"All The King's Men: History's Importance." Essayworld.com. January 12, 2007. Accessed February 21, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/All-The-Kings-Men-Historys-Importance/58596.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 1/12/2007 05:22:33 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1236
Pages: 5

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