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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 important to each in different
ways. Willie Stark must support his entire empire in a world of
enemies and corruption, to do this he relies on the past to
provide him with the foundation.
“Dirt’s a funny thing,” the Boss said. “Come to think of it, there
ain’t a thing but dirt on this God’s green globe except what’s
under water, and that’s dirt too. It’s dirt makes the grass grow.
A diamond ain’t a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got
awful hot. God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew 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