a whole new view on literature from yours truly....

The Socratic seminar really got me thinking about not only All the King's Men, but novels in general. I remember reading The Great Gatsby last year and talking about how important it is to decide if you trust the narrator or not because it could change the way you interpret the entire book. Then i tried relating this same theory to All the King's Men. What if Jack was just lying? What if everything he told us was only used to make everyone else look bad? What if this is the whole point of the book- how easily a person can just believe what they're told, just how it is with politics. Much of the novel is about the public believing everything Willie tells them, even though most of it turns out to be a lie or an exaggerated truth. What if that was the authors purpose in having Jack be the narrator? The author could just be trying to show us even more how easily peoples minds can be persuaded. I mean, lets face it...every time we pick up a book, we automatically believe what the narrator is telling us. Why? Because that's our instinct. We have no reason to not believe him or her yet. So we just give them our undivided attention and trust, without them even having to earn it. Which is what i believe is Robert Penn Warrens entire message in All the Kings Men. (or at least one of them)