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Cass Mastern Character Analysis

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1. Cass Mastern’s story, though at first seemingly unnecessary and random, shares many elements and themes with Jack’s life. The story of Jack Burden and Cass Mastern are alike in that they involve the cycle of betrayal, guilt, and the burden of responsibility.

Cass Mastern commits the ultimate betrayal- he sleeps with his best friend’s wife. Duncan Trice, who was “passionately and single-mindedly devoted to his wife”, commits suicide upon finding out of the affair with a “lead slug nearly the size of a man’s thumb in his chest” (Warren 4.237-243). Jack too betrays someone close to him: his father. Though he did not know Judge Irwin was his father at the time, Jack spends months “digging for what he Judge dropped” (Warren 5.71). As a result of Jack’s findings, the Judge kills himself with a shot “straight through the heart” (Warren 8.488). Cass Mastern and Jack Burden both somewhat directly kill two people very close to them as a result of their deep …show more content…

She suffers unbelievable tragedy with the death of her only son and husband in a matter of a month, yet she is one of the only static characters because it does not change her. Willie is Lucy’s first love and they both come from humble beginnings in Mason County. She is largely domestic (Jack spends a good portion of the first chapter describing Lucy in a state of “bliss of self-fulfillment” because she served dinner successfully) and makes many sacrifices for Willie’s career- she stays married to him despite his affairs with multiple women (Warren 1.51). Lucy’s main internal conflict is looking for a “something so [she] could live” after Willie and Tom’s death (Warren 10.590). She finds resolution for this when she adopts Tom’s baby, whom she believes has “got to be Tom’s” and decides she must accept her responsibility in carrying on Willie’s legacy (for her own good) and remember him as “a great man” rather than live in bitterness (Warren

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