Willie Stark: Corruption=Success?

Today in class, we were having an intellectual discussion on the novel All the King's Men, and were discussing the characteristics of some of the major characters. During this discussion, one particular question on a particular character caught my mind. The question was regarding Willie Stark's success as a person and politician. Throughout the novel, the character progression of Willie Stark is shown through a series of flashbacks and events as well as through his reactions to these said events. Although the events are shown and explained, the question of how Willie became such a success begs to be answered.

It can easily be said that Willie's claim to fame was the incident with the fire escape. Willie, sensing corruption in the Mason City politics, motioned to hire a group of black men to build the local schoolhouse. In a bout of racial anger, the city hierarchy campaigned to take Willie out of his office of Treasurer and replaced him with a sheep that would do their will. The construction firm the city ended up hiring turned out to build the schoolhouse in such a way that it needed repairs before it was even finished. As a result, when a fire drill was done a few weeks later, the fire escape fell killing three students instantly boosting Willie into the spotlight. At this time, he was considered an honest man having never been corrupted politically or morally due to the fact that he did not drink or have affairs. Despite the fact that this event did cause Willie to be nominated to run for governor, even though he was a dummy, and gave Willie a good deal of political fame, Warren doesn't seem to intend for this particular event to be Willie's defining moment. Earlier in the novel, Jack Burden stated that people like Willie didn't get lucky, but instead created their own luck, and the scene described above seemed awfully like luck.

Later on in the novel, Willie Stark undergoes a major character shift and Warren seems to intend this event to be the one that changes Willie and lead him towards success. As previously said, Willie was nominated as a gubernatorial candidate, but only to serve as a dummy who could take votes away from another candidate. For a good bit of the campaign, Willie had no idea that he was being setup and as a result was extremely boring and bland in his speeches and campaigning. But, when Sadie Burke, his later assistant, told him about what was happening to him, he exploded in a burst of uncharacteristic action. He got extremely drunk and then next day, attended a picnic and gave an extremely emotional and savage speech. It seemed at this point that Willie became a true politician and molded his way to success creating his own luck. He essentially became corrupt, but not in a political sense. His drinking indicated a moral corruption that would later morph into a political corruption that would show through his actions. After this event, Willie showed the signs of a true politician, going on with a chameleon-like persona molding to whatever the audience wanted to see. When talking to the public and giving a speech, he used raw emotions and passion, and when talking to government peers, he was able to use an academic voice. It was almost as if Warren mandated it necessary for corruption to go along with political success, a success that Willie Stark definitely achieved.

Adam Stanton Striking Willie Out?

When reading All the King's Men, many questions appeared in my mind as to why a series of events occurred. Being the complex novel that it is, All the King's Men is not the easiest read and contains many plot elements and character twists that cause the reader to be confused at times. From the fact that Judge Irwin was really Jack's father, to the fact that Willie Stark was having an affair with Anne Stanton, Robert Penn Warren, the author of the novel, seemed to add many inexplicable twists in the novel. One of these twists of which I was most curious about was the fact that Adam Stanton ended up killing Willie Stark.

Throughout the novel, Adam Stanton seemed to have some sort of perversion towards the corrupt. Warren made it clear that he hated politics for this reason. Whenever Jack Burden mentioned that he was into politics or brought up politics in a discussion, Adam seemed to undergo a character shift as he immediately became cynical towards the subject sometimes even angering Jack. This was of course highlighted by the fact that he outright refused to take control of the hospital at first merely because he hated politics and he hated Willie Starks for his corruption.

When Anne came to Jack to attempt to force him into convincing Adam to direct the hospital effort, Jack stated that he had to alter Adam's reality and view on life. He was filled with the noble figures of his father Governor Stanton and Judge Irwin. Warren almost seemed to portray Adam as a naive individual because of his views on the world. In finding that Judge Irwin had taken a bribe to reach his position and that Governor Stanton had covered up the bribe to protect his friend, Jack seemed to change the novel as he successfully altered Adam's reality and showed that corruption is everywhere. Then Adam's immediate acceptance of Stark's proposal to run the hospital after getting knowledge that his father and the Judge were corrupt was also surprising. He seemed to accept the fact that corruption was prevalent in society, especially after hearing about his father, yet he continued to go on and kill Willie Stark in a cruel twist of irony. Stark seemed to be coming clean from his corrupt ways only to be shot by a person who hated corruption. After his acceptance of the job, Stark came over to Stanton's apartment and gave his "all good must come from some bad" spiel and once again Stanton's animosity towards politics and corruption was highlighted.

As the novel went on, I continued to wonder why Adam hated corruption so much as he then slugged Gummy Larson in the face when he came to visit him regarding giving him the hospital construction contract. When Adam finally found out that Anne had had an affair with Willie and then killed Willie by shooting him in the heart, I gained a little perspective one Adam's psyche and Warren's purpose for him. Throughout the novel, Adam seemed to be the character foil of Willie Stark, who seemed to personify corruption. When he learned that Anne was having an affair with Willie, essentially corrupting herself, it was Adam's last straw as he cracked. It was almost symbolic as both Adam and Willie died by gunshots to the heart area as Adam had felt deeply betrayed in the heart when he died and Willie was emotionally spent. Adam remained against the prevalence of corruption, a concept that was a major theme in the novel, till the end.