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All The King's Men Fate Analysis

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Fate versus free will. This has been a statement questioned since humans could think. Fate is the idea that everything is meant to happen for a reason, commonly connected to religion and the fact that God has a plan for everyone and he leads us in the direction that he decides. On the other hand, free will is the idea that you as a human being has the power to determine his or her destiny with every single decision they choose to make. This argument prominently came up previously in the course as we read the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, presenting the main character Billy Pilgrim in a situation that made him debate whether his life was determined by fate or free will. In Robert Penn Warren’s masterpiece novel All the King’s Men, Warren presents a situation with one of his main characters, Jack Burden. Jack comes to believe the theory that was initially created by Cass Mastern, pointing out how when someone touches any point of a spider web, the vibrations from the touch on one side may be felt on the other side. Jack Burden later comes up with a theory that contrasts the spider web theory. Jack’s theory becomes …show more content…

The use of the support and quotes that were given shows how the reader can compare and contrast the two theories, making arguments for both sides. One of the most significant things that the Warren wrote in this novel was when Jack said, “We can keep the past only by having the future, for they are forever tied together”(310). What Warren is trying to convey to the reader is that self-trust gives us confidence to live in the future; and with having this confidence that we should not live in the past. Warren wants us to recognize the past and not ignore it (like Jack initially did), but not be bound by

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