Jack Burden, the chronicler and one of the two possible protagonists of All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, is anything but a static narrator. His character is perhaps even more dynamic than that of Willie Stark, the novel's man of the hour. Over the course of the adventures and misadventures Jack encounters on life's capricious road, he ultimately destroys his original self, tries out numerous vaguely different personalities, and ends up becoming a completely altered entity. Although there are many factors that influence the destruction of Mr. Burden's main character and the formation of his ultimate personality, the departure of his father when he was very young, his love affair with Anne Stanton, the finding of evidence of the misdeeds of the Judge Irwin, the judge's suicide and the revelation that he is Jack's father and the deaths of Willie Stark and Adam Stanton are the five monumental events that have the greatest effect on his personality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Although he doesn't realize it at the time, Jack's life is initially significantly affected by an episode that occurs when he is six years old. Ellis Burden, the man Jack calls "the academic lawyer" and believes to be his father for a considerable portion of the novel, abandons Jack and his mother for the life of a poor street corner evangelist. Jack does not discover the reason for this apparent abandonment until several years later. Until he discovers the reason for Ellis's escape, Jack interprets his departure from the point of view of the small child he is when the episode occurs. He feels rejected, angry and doesn't understand why a man would abandon him and his infatuating mother. After this incident, Jack carries with him a sense of inadequacy and defect that shapes his mentality throughout adolescence and adulthood. Jack's denial of responsibility throughout much of the novel is also rooted in this event, as is his lack of understanding of human motivation. Jack assumes that his "father" has simply left and discounts the possibility that Jack's mother gave him reason to leave. When he visits Ellis, believing him to be his father, an adult Jack is ashamed, even though Ellis is helping others and appears to be happy with his life. Jack feels that Ellis is "weak". As Jack sees it, he hasn't inherited the genes needed to succeed; it is useless for him to toil for any goal, and he is condemned to wander through life indefinitely. Jack references his own lack of ambition throughout the novel, which results from his observations of where the ambition to succeed took his father: to the street corner. Jack has no hopes or dreams, partly because he has no father he can strive to emulate. Another influential event in Jack's life is the romantic relationship he shares with Anne Stanton in his youth. Anne, Jack's first love, changes him by allowing him to feel emotions unlike anything he's ever felt before. Loving a parent or a parental figure and being in love with a peer are separate and very different emotions for him. The difference between these feelings is especially stark because Jack had no peer love and little normal parental love until he and Anne fell in love. Jack's feelings for Anne are among the purest and most honest he expresses throughout the entire narrative. Jack's descriptions of Anne and their moments together illustrate true love, rather than lust or infatuation. All images of Anne and their love story are idealized; however, and the indistinct and inconclusive end of theiryouthful relationship creates a lot of cynicism in Jack's character. Her image of the perfect summer simply drifting away forever is shattered, along with her impression of being in a perfect relationship. Jack discovers that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship, nor a perfect woman, and allows this knowledge to destroy his already meager idealism completely. When he and Anne fall out of love, Jack becomes even more emotionally withdrawn and eventually resorts to a relationship with Lois based solely on physical attraction. Jack's personality is further transformed when he finds evidence that Judge Monty Irwin, his father figure after Ellis' departure, accepted a bribe to save his house, assets, and position. When he initially confronts Willie to "find out some dirt" on the judge, Jack is confident that he won't find anything. Fawning over the older man for much of his life, Jack refuses to believe that Irwin is anything but lily white until Irwin confesses to the entire scandal that Jack uncovers. After his thorough research and this confirmation, Jack is amazed, disappointed and shocked. Jack is now disappointed in the second man he looked up to. This event leaves Jack with even less trust in people than he had to begin with. If his father and Judge Irwin could both be subjected to such a disappointing failure, Jack is surely doomed. Almost immediately after his revelation about Judge Irwin, Jack experiences another momentous event. After considering the position he has been placed in due to the discovery of his past sins, Judge Irwin commits suicide. In a state of horror and disbelief, Jack's mother reveals that Judge Irwin is Jack's father. Jack has been bombarded by two facts of great importance at the same time and must digest this new information as it pours into his character, changing him permanently and irrevocably. He cries, showing the most sincere emotion from his romance with Anne. Knowing that Judge Irwin would rather kill himself than give away his power, Jack appreciates a newfound reverence for men's responsibility. Judge Irwin takes such responsibility for his actions that he sacrifices his own life. Jack has no choice but to reject his "Great Twitch" theory in the phenomenal irony of the situation: Judge Irwin accepts a bribe to save the property Jack inherits by inadvertently exposing the bribe. As much as he'd like to, Jack can no longer believe that life simply happens to men. Through Judge Irwin's suicide, Jack also discovers that his mother is capable of love. She truly loved Judge Irwin and that love produced Jack. In the end, Jack is somewhat relieved to know that he has a strong father rather than a weak "academic lawyer," but he still remembers tender moments with Ellis and is unclear about his feelings about his fatherhood. Needless to say, Jack's perception of life changes significantly the moment he discovers that he drove his father to suicide. When Willie Stark and Adam Stanton are killed virtually simultaneously, the last significant change in Jack's character emerges. Accustomed to Willie being in control of every situation, Jack is a bit shocked when Governor Stark is caught in a cold-blooded situation that not even the "Boss" can control. More importantly, Jack must reckon with his own responsibilities, particularly his role in Willie's eventual death. If he had not begun investigating the judge, the ironic and tragic chain of events that unfolds in the final chapters of All the King's Men would never have been brought about. This solidifies the concept that Jack begins to develop after the suicide of."