Explication of All the King's Men article
Mark Royden Winchell's article in the Mississippi Quarterly entitled "O Happy Sin! Felix Culpa in All the King's Men" is a very interesting read because it really examines the characters of Adam Stanton, Willie Stark, and Jack Burden in a new way. There are some drawbacks to the article however. I think Winchell chose to use too many quotes from other scholarly articles. The assumption could be made that just over half of what is written is in the authors' own words. Also, although the article is interesting, it is more of a supplementary read to help understand some of the characters better; it does not really critique the novel as a whole. In the article, Winchell argues that in All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren examines the paradox of the "fortunate fall." Winchell states in his article that the Fortunate Fall is "the fall from innocence and its psychological and moral consequences" (572). Winchell also separates this metaphor into three groups, or "parties." The first is labeled the "party of hope," who sees the world as a reborn "Adam", who still has a chance at being morally righteous. The second, the "party of memory," views our world as a "moral extension of the old." The third, labeled "the party of irony," state
This introduction as very long, it took three pages before the author even began to examine the characters under this theme. Winchell then focused on the characters of Adam, Willie, and Jack, and how they each confronted their respective fall from innocence. s that "spiritual rebirth can occur only after one has discarded the illusion of innocence and has accepted the full burden of a fallen humanity"(572). Adam Stanton is the character that does not accomplish the feat of being reborn after falling from innocence. As Winchell put it cleverly, he "exists in a sort of psychic Eden" (574). A few times while reading the novel, I realized that Warren purposely named the character Adam to signify the link to the biblical Adam. When Adam ate the fruit, he blamed Eve, instead of taking the blame for his own weakness. Essentially, Adam Stanton has done the same thing in accordance to blaming Willie for the loss of Anne's virginity and his father for his being named Director of the hospital. He dies never reaching the knowledge that would redeem him. The last section of the article deals extensively with Jack's reaction to the "fortunate fall". It details the stages Jack goes through, from being "a clammy, sad little foetus" (577), to the
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 840
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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