Character Willie Stark In Jack Burden's Novel

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one who has the drive to use every waking hour profitably.
Another of Willie Stark's primary characteristics is his ability to hold a crowd spellbound, to move them emotionally as he wishes them to be moved. He does just the right things in the drugstore in Mason City in order to make sure that the crowd's allegiance to him is reinforced. When he makes a speech in the Town Square a little later, he makes sure of two things: that he has this crowd spellbound by his oratory and that his speech makes good copy (or sound bite) for the newspapermen who have accompanied him on this trip.
Although his ability to hold and emotionally capture a crowd seems to be an innate ability, he did not always use it as effectively as he does in the novel's present. His speech to the crowd can recognize that Willie is going to give them the "Stark treatment," the bulge and the glitter in his eyes. The speech after the impeachment attempt has been curbed is effective in controlling a much larger crowd ...

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and inviting its response. These speeches are designe ffb d to project an image of Willie Stark as kind of person whom these people can trust, the kind of person who works for them and follows their wishes. These later speeches recognize the emotional nature of the people whom he addresses, and Willie Stark seems almost contemptuous of them as he manipulates them as he wishes.

Willie Stark has been labeled as a political demagogue because of the nature of his speeches and because of the way that he manipulates people. Willie Stark did not begin that way, however. He was forced out of his belief in the basic goodness and rationality of people. He discovered that the public would not or ...

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