All the King's Men

Jack Burden Escapes Responsibility Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men explores the idea of the relationship between the actions of individuals. Jack Burden does not understand this element, resulting in his escaping responsibility and lacking direction and ambition. Jack, when needing to accept responsibility and face the relationship of actions, runs away through Great Sleeps, living in the past, evading the future, and the Great Twitch theory of human motivation. There are many things …

…Great Sleeps, an avoidance of the future, living in the past, and the invention of the Great Twitch theory, Jack runs from responsibility and lacks direction and ambition in his life. During the course of the novel, Jack shows the reader how far he will go to escape responsibility. It's not until Jack sees that life is like a spider web, when he starts to accept responsibility and gain a direction and purpose within life.