All the King's Men: The Strange Parallels in Chapter 4

As I was reading All the King’s Men, I kept pondering Robert Penn Warren’s purpose in abruptly but purposefully including the story of Cass Mastern, who is seemingly the main character of chapter 4. I have desperately been trying to decipher Warren’s message in strangely incorporating the complex nature of Cass Mastern’s life, because I truly do believe there is a more profound purpose than what I perceive it to be.

Chapter 4 in All the King’s Men is essentially a trip to the past, as we are introduced to a Jack Warden from the past, the graduate student “working for his Ph.D. in American History” at the State University of his unnamed and unidentified home state, which frustratingly remains unspecified throughout the book. This particular chapter also incorporates some third person point of view narrative style, as Jack is temporarily no longer the chief narrator interestingly enough.

Nonetheless, Warren weaves this intricate web of what emerges to be the focus of Jack Burden’s first excursion into the past which Jack renders to be unsuccessful as he was unable to comprehend Cass Mastern’s motives and true intentions in the grand scheme of things. Then, Jack goes on to explain that the reason he ceased his research in the excursion of Cass Mastern’s history was merely because he became too immersed in trying to “discover the truth and not the facts,” that he found it almost unbearable to continue the assignment.  

The chapter initially introduces Jack’s disappointing and unsatisfactory college life. This is described in detail by the mysterious narrator who depicts Jack’s college-student self as, in a nutshell, invulnerable to everything, which is potentially “the curse of Jack Burden.” On a side note, I found the irony in this line particularly amusing considering the fact that Jack’s last name is Burden (like an inconvenience or a bother), and he is cursed with being invulnerable. After a quick introduction to the context of Jack’s fascination with Cass Mastern as a college graduate student, Warren launches into this elaborate description of Jack’s initial excursion as Jack recalls the facts that he discovered about this man in his “historical research” of what he considers simply “a job,” when it is clearly more significant than that.

Later, Cass Mastern’s character is defined to be one of the two uncles of Jack’s father, Ellis Burden, aka the Scholarly Attorney. Gradually, Cass’s life is slowly unveiled as the story reverses back to the late 1800s, when Cass was just a young man who winds up in Lexington, Kentucky, and finds that “there is an education for vice as well as for virtue.”  Soon enough, Cass greets one of his close friends, Mr. Duncan Trice, who happens to live a very wealthy and opulent lifestyle. Shortly after encountering Mr. Trice’s wife, Annabelle Trice (aka “the pursuer”), Cass is mesmerized by her beauty and her goddess-like persona. From the beginning, we see the influence that Annabelle has on Cass, as they engage in a scandalous affair that ultimately results in Duncan Trice’s suicide. The secrecy and deception behind Cass and Annabelle’s affair is very similar, and almost parallel to the private relationship between Sadie and Willie Stark in the novel. However, I keep finding contradictions that oppose this theory because Annabelle’s manipulation is disguised by her luring and seductive figure that entices Cass in his naivety. This is considerably different from Sadie’s brazen, self-assured, and assertive character that is depicted as dangerous to Willie’s morals and goodness. Overall, I am still perplexed by Annabelle’s and Cass’s role in the chapter as I’m trying to discern whether Annabelle is a symbol of appeal and temptation or not, and whether Cass is inherently good or not. In essence, a lot of the contradictions and contrasts seen in these two characters can also be seen in Jack and Willie’s innate natures.