Historical Parallel Construction in All The King's Men
Huey Pierce Long rose from a poor Lousiana family to become a demigod in the pantheon of American politics, while slowly abandoning his most deeply held principles to the prevailing political realties of the time. While not exactly matching the details of his life, Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men closely parallels the famous southern demagogue, known as the "Kingfish." The author uses this association to further illustrate his primary goal of the book - that one cannot effectively change society through a corrupt system, without being corrupted by the system itself. Through first observing historical similarities, the reader is then prepared to accept Warren's thesis.
Without examples to prove its significance or truth, any theory is meaningless in a pragmatic sense. Thus, Warren styles his protagonist around a real-world character in order to further assist his goal in writing the book - to warn would-be saviors of the people that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," as Lord Acton once said. Both avant-garde men of the people are of ignoble descent - the real statesman born in Winnfield, Louisiana and the fictional raised on a farm in the unnamed state that serves as a backdrop for the novel. However, this common origin is only the beginning of similarities between the two. Both study for the bar exam as young men, and both pass it to receive their law degrees. Their experience in law leads directly to their first campaign for governor of their respective state, and both fail to win. However, both parley the experience and name recognition garnered by a gubernatorial run and soundly defeat their opponents to becom...
... middle of paper ...
...Speeches: 80 Years of Political Oratory. Public Broadcasting Society. 6 Oct. 2001.
http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/h_long_s1.html
J. Edgar Hoover. "Letter to Marvin H. McIntyre, 18 August 1934." Freedom of Information Act - Federal Bureau of Investigation. 7 Oct. 2001. http://foia.fbi.gov/
J. Edgar Hoover. "Letter to Marvin H. McIntyre, 19 August 1934." Freedom of Information Act - Federal Bureau of Investigation. 7 Oct. 2001. http://foia.fbi.gov/
"Long, Huey Pierce," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) Online Encyclopedia 2001. http://encarta.msn.com/(C) 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Long, Huey Pierce. My First Days in the White House. The Telegraph Press, 1935.
Social Security Online History Page. 7 Oct. 2001 http://www.ssa.gov/history/hueywhouse.html
Warren, Robert Penn. All The King's Men. Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1996.
November 6, 1963-Oswald delivers a letter to James Hosty at the Dallas FBI office. Gordon Shanklin later orders this letter to be destroyed.
The optimal scenario of the AHA would be to have a differentiated workforce that would consist of identifying "A" players and "A" positions throughout the organization where wealth or value is created to contribute to the bottom line of generating the billion-dollar goal by 2010 and placing those players in all positions throughout the organization. However, the reality is that the best action for the AHA due to budgetary and time constraints is to make strategic investments in the workforce that will have high impact and drive desired results by putting the right people in the right places and not the right people everywhere. The AHA did this by creating a new talent framework driven by eight operational goals to help build the foundation for how they will identify their "A" players and positions for strategic investment. The objecti...
Kennedy, John F. The White House Special Message on Civil Rights. 28 Feb 1963. CongressLink. 7 April 2004. http://www.congresslink.org/civil/cr1.html
Gest, Ted, at al. "JFK The Untold Story of the Warren Commission." U.S. News & World Report 17 August 1992: 28-42.
Dr. King is an emotional, inspiring and strong speaker. His " I Have A Dream" speech tugs a deep root war of emotions in every American’s heart; therefore, this speech is the perfect display of pathos. Even though pathos overwhelm logo and ethos, they also very much present in his speech.
All the King’s Men, written by Robert Penn Warren, is set deep in the south during the 1930’s. This is a story of the rise and fall of a political titan. Willie Stark comes from poverty to become the governor of his state. He forces his enemies into submission by blackmails, repeated threats, and bullies them. He creates a series of liberal reforms that lay heavy tax burdens on the rich and lifts the money issue off of the poor farmers. His foil character Sam MacMurfee persistently searches for way to ruin the career of Willie Starks. Sam MacMurfee has thugs and powerful political allies deep in his pockets. The two characters remind the reader of corrupt figures in politics such as the famous Boss Tweed.
Holloway, Carson. "Profiling and the Constitution." Public Discourse. N.p., n. d. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
Richards, Neil M. "The Dangers Of Surveillance." Harvard Law Review 126.7 (2013): 1934-1965. Academic Search Elite. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.
FBI. "Federal Civil Rights Statutes." FBI. FBI, 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. .
Johnson, Lyndon B. Letters to Sargent Shiver on his appointment to direct the program to eliminate poverty”. February 12,1964.
Rudovsky, David. "Breaking the Pattern of Racial Profiling." TRIAL. Aug. 2002: 29+. SIRS Issues Researcher.
On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King made his famous “I Have a dream” speech on the Lincoln Memorial after the March on Washington. He delivered this speech to millions of people blacks and whites. This is one of the greatest speeches because it has many elements like pathos, logos, ethos, repetition, assonance, and consonance.
Although Robert Penn Warren denies the assumptions that Willie Stark was created as a fictional representation of Huey Long, the correlations between the novel, All the King’s Men and Huey Long’s life are indisputable. Warren’s development of Willie Stark’s character perfectly mimics Huey Long through his political advances, his sexual indiscretions, his personality, and his assassination in the Capital building. The historical parallels shine clearly throughout the plot of the novel, but the internal detail of All the King’s Men clearly demonstrates the connections between Huey Long and Willie Stark.
Harris, George C. "Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts." Pepperdine Law Review (2000-2001): 28. Online.
In his speech, King uses different types of rhetorical guidelines. He uses them to show his points in a better and easier way to understand .At the beginning he successfully uses a mythos. A mythos has a deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for the audience. In mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation he shows that our ancestors signed a contract, in which all human beings are created equal, and therefore should be treated in the same way as others. He also visualizes his ideas with visual examples, which everybody can understand. “America has given the black population a bad check, which has come back marked insufficient funds”( I Have a Dream)