Diseases of the Heart
When a good author writes a good novel, coincidences do not exist. Every detail is carefully calculated and exists for a reason. Robert Penn Warren’s, All the King’s Men is an example of such a book. One “false coincidence” is that a gunshot through the chest kills four characters: Duncan Trice, Judge Irwin, Adam Stanton, and the Boss himself, Willie Stark. These four characters are shot there because an emotional disease with which they cannot live exits in each of their hearts.
Duncan Trice appears in the story of Cass Mastern, which Jack Burden researches for his doctorate. Duncan is husband to Annabelle and good friend to Cass. However, Cass betrays Duncan by having an affair with Annabelle. One night, Duncan dies while cleaning his guns in the library. Cass’ journal says, “on March 19, 1854, Duncan Trice died, in his library...with a lead slug nearly the size of a man’s thumb in his chest. It was quite obviously an accident” (171). Be that as it may, Annabelle learns that it was a suicide when her servant finds Duncan’s wedding ring, before which he had never removed. According to Cass’ journal,
[Duncan] has learned the truth-from the coldness of his
wife, from the gossip of servants-and had drawn the gold
ring from his finger and carried it to the bed where he had
lain with her and had put it beneath her pillow and had gone
down and shot himself but under such circumstances that no
one save his wife would ever guess it more than an accident (175).
Duncan commits suicide because he cannot live with the fact that his wife had an affair with another man. He makes it seem like an accident so as not to ruin Annabelle’s reputation, but he subtly lets Annabelle know that he intentionally killed himself by placing his wedding ring beneath her pillow.
Duncan’s disease is the simplest of them all. He suffers from sheer and utter pain. Duncan loves Annabelle with all his heart and cannot bear to think of her with another man. Cass says that “[w]hen [Annabelle] came into a room, [Duncan’s] eyes would fix upon her without shame....[b]ut I think that it was done by him unawares, his partiality for her was so great” (167). When Duncan learns of Annabelle’s affair with Cass, his heart becomes full of gut-wrenching pain. He cannot live with Annabelle or with the pain she has given him. The only way Duncan can cure himself of his disease is suicide by shooting himself in the chest.
Judge Irwin also commits suicide by shooting himself in the chest. More specifically, Judge Irwin shoots himself through the heart. Shortly after Jack visits the judge to tell him about the dirt Jack has found on him, one of the judge’s servants finds him dead. Dr. Bland tells Jack that the judge shot himself because of his failing health. The doctor says, “[i]t was undoubtedly a question of health. His health was failing. A very active man...very often such a man doesn’t want to face the last years of limited activity. Yes, I am sure that was the reason” (350). Jack, however, thinks otherwise.
The disease in Judge Irwin’s heart consists of the guilt he feels due to two rather large secrets. The first is that the judge was partly responsible for the suicide of another man. Mortimer L. Littlepaugh was fired from the American Electric Power Company so Judge Irwin could fill his seat as part of a bribe the judge received from the company. Mortimer then committed suicide. Judge Irwin’s second secret is that he is Jack’s father and not the Scholarly Attorney.
When thinking about Judge Irwin’s suicide, Jack says, “Mortimer had killed Judge Irwin because Judge Irwin had killed him, and I had killed Judge Irwin because Judge Irwin had created me, and looking at matters in that light once could say that Mortimer and I were merely the twin instruments of Judge Irwin’s protracted and ineluctable self-destruction” (353). Jack obviously feels that the combination of these two secrets and their respective guilt is what caused the judge to commit suicide. The judge cannot handle the combination and the possibility of their being revealed. Both would destroy the high reputation he has. The secrets affect Judge Irwin’s conscience as well because he must believe that he is a good person. However, these two secrets taint the perception the judge has about himself. Therefore, shooting himself through the heart is symbolic of the judge trying to alleviate the pain he must feel there. By destroying his heart, the judge destroys his guilt.
The third character who dies from a gunshot through the chest is Adam Stanton. When Adam shoots Willie Stark outside the Senate building, Sugar Boy pulls out his gun and shoots Adam back, right through the chest. Jack says, “Adam was bleeding heavily. He was stitched across the chest. The chest was all knocked in. He was already dead” (396). While Adam’s death may seem like an act of retaliation, there is a disease in Adam’s heart which he must be rid of as well.
The disease in Adam’s heart is perfection. Adam passionately believes in Plato’s idea of ultimate and perfect Forms and tries to apply it to his life. However, the idea of Forms is abstract whereas Adam’s life and the world he lives in are very concrete and hardly perfect. When the two do not mix the way Adam wants them to, trouble ensues. For example, in order for Jack to get Adam to take the job as director of the hospital that Willie is planning to build, Jack has to “change the picture of the world [Adam] carries around in his head” (248). In effect, Jack tries to change the Forms that Adam believes in so that they can better fit reality. This confusion of ideas in Adam’s heart causes Adam to finally accept the position, but he does not do so very willingly. The fatal confusion occurs when Adam learns that his sister Anne has become Willie Stark’s mistress. Adam cannot believe that the perfect Form he has of Anne would stoop so low as to sleep with Willie Stark, a man Adam finds abominable. The contradiction in Adam’s heart drives him to the brink of insanity, which is why Adam tries to kill Willie. He sees that as the only way to restore the Form of his sister. A person who constantly lives in between Forms and reality cannot live a sane and normal life. Sugar Boy shoots Adam to retaliate for what Adam did to the Boss but symbolically he shoots Adam to destroy the misery that plagues him.
Last, but certainly not least, the Boss himself, Willie Stark, is shot in the chest. Adam Stanton tries to kill Willie after Adam learns that Willie has been sleeping with his sister, Anne. While Adam’s shot does wound Willie, it does not kill him. At first, Jack does not even think the Boss is hurt. What does finally kill the Boss is a complication of an internal infection caused by the shot.
The disease in Willie’s heart is corruption. He starts out as a simple, honest man with simple dreams for the state. For example, Willie first becomes famous by fighting Mason County to allow a more honest contractor to build the new school house. However, once the people of Louisiana elect Willie for governor, those dreams, and the man himself, become quite corrupt. He stoops to blackmail many a time to get what he wants. No outside force can stop this corruption. Willie has incredible power and can easily handle any outside force that tries to bring him down. The bullet from Adam’s gun proves this. The bullet did not kill Willie and an operation easily removes it. After the operation, the doctor remarks on Willie’s strength by saying, “[h]e’s got a chance....He’s a strong man” (399).
If no outside force can stop Willie, then the only man who can is Willie himself. The internal infection Willie contracts proves this. It symbolizes Willie’s conscience. Willie started out as a good man but as he went on in life he became more and more corrupt. Willie’s conscience knows that his actions as governor are wrong and that it needs to stop Willie before he gets out of control. It uses the bullet as a catalyst to start the disintegration of Willie Stark. His conscience uses the infection to break down every aspect of Willie’s power. When Jack visits Willie before he dies Jack describes him as “a sick looking customer” and he goes on to say that “[t]he flesh had fallen away on his face till the skin sacked off the bone the way it does on an old man’s face” (399). Willie’s physical stature makes up a large part of his power and the loss of his stature makes Willie much less intimidating than before he contracted the infection . By taking away his power, Willie’s conscience takes away his ability to corrupt and ultimately his life.
In conclusion, Duncan Trice, Judge Irwin, Adam Stanton and Willie Stark all suffer from an emotional disease in each of their hearts. They are also all killed by a gunshot to the chest. Each killing is a physical manifestation of the inner disease. If the each man were not killed when they were, the disease would continue to fester and grow inside each of their hearts until the man died a slow and painful death. The harshness of this solution shows that to live with the disease is much worse than ending one’s life. Emotional diseases, which almost always afflict the heart, are of the worst variety and this novel shows what they can drive a person to do.
© May 2, 2000
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