Monday, October 15, 2012

Reality vs fantasy.......or not

In what I have read of All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, which only two chapters (so far), there is this theme of reality vs. fantasy. The narrator of the story,  Jack Burden, seems to be traveling between these two worlds that are both fantasy and what's actually happening as he sets the scene of what is currently going and by going backwards to explain how the current events came to be. But Jack isn't the only one who bounces between the two worlds; the main character, Willie Stark, seems to be also. But before I continue I'm going to veer from the topic a little to vent about the things I have noticed about this book; firstly Warren introduces the main character and the minor characters but as you continue reading, you realize that the main character and the narrator are two different people, now that isnt that unusual but in the way that Warren writes this novel it just sounds a little weird. Secondly because you realize that narrator is a different person, there is a period of time where you're wondering who the main character is and why it's taking Warren so long to introduce him. Jack Burden thinks of himself as the wallpaper, the one who is constantly forgotten and the fact that Warren takes so long to introduce makes me feel as though Burden isn't as important to the story as the other characters , when he actually is. But i digress so anyways back to reality vs. fantasy. I see the theme as less of reality vs fantasy but more of real vs. fake. For Jack the life that he wished he had vs. the one he's lived and is living is the difference between real and fake. For example Jack says, "I was so much in love with her that I lived in a dream. In that dream my heart seemed to be ready to burst, for it seemed that the whole world was inside it swelling to get out and be the world. But that summer came to an end. Time passed and nothing happened that we had felt so certain at one time would happen (Warren 39-40)." In Jack's dreams ( the fantasy world) things between him and Anne  are perfect. She is no longer a little girl but now she has grow into a woman. But in this world both of their feelings run wild and then would meet at the same time , but in reality what was only a fling wont go to be anymore than that . In Burden's fantasy he is happy have his girlfriend but in the real world he doesn't have her because they don't last after that summer. then there is the idea of change in that when Jack returns back to Mason City everything is different than how he remembers it so that it really can't be real " they ain't real, I thought as I walked down the hall, nary one. But I knew they were. You come into a strange place , into a town like Mason City, and they don't seem real but you know they are (Warren 57)."  When Jack thinks about the town he thinks of the people , the people he sees now can't be real because they aren't the same people that he used to know, there's no way that they can be different even though it is common for the people of Mason city like that, in his fantasy world the people are different they are who they used to be. Then there is Willie Stark who is the Boss, his personality fits right in with real vs. fake. It's as if Stark is many different people; his fake side is when he is politician mode, he does whatever he can to appeal to the masses, to make them feel like there is some common ground between them. Even Lucy knows that this isn't his true self. But there is also his real self the self that isnt politician mode like when he is talking to Lucy, his pappy, or his posse. The way to notice the difference is in his voice,"In his old voice, his own voice. Or was that his voice? Which was his true voice, which one of all the voices, you would wonder (Warren 10)." his changes in his voice show the real self but also show the fake self. Most people who know can't decipher which one is real or which voice is fake. He uses so many different personalities that it's almost hard to tell who is Willie Stark reall.

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