All the King's Men Summary
Robert Penn Warren

Everything you need to understand or teach All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

All the King's Men Summary & Study Guide
4 Student Essays
2 Literature Criticisms
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30 All the King's Men Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
Pre-Made Tests and Quizzes
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All the King's Men Summary

The story is about Jack Burden, the right-hand man to the corrupt politician, Governor Willie Stark. As Willie’s power and corruption grow larger, Jack’s conscience becomes more eroded. He alienates his family and friends by working for Willie, but he resents himself for staying on Willie’s payroll. Jack spends the novel narrating how he became Willie’s lackey while unknowingly uncovering family secrets.

Jack Burden, Willie Stark, and...

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All the King's Men Study Guide

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Robert Penn Warren Biographies (6)

Robert Penn Warren

742 words, approx. 3 pages

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), American man of letters, was dedicated to art as a way of exploring the meaning of contemporary existence.Writer and poet Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was born in Gut... Read more

Robert Penn Warren

4,201 words, approx. 15 pages

Warren has spent his entire professional career associated with institutions of higher education. After graduation from Oxford, he joined the faculty, as an assistant professor, at Southwestern Colleg... Read more

Robert Penn Warren

10,750 words, approx. 36 pages

Until recent years, the popularity of Robert Penn Warren's fiction, crowned by the ascendancy of All the King's Men (1946) to the status of a classic, has somewhat obscured his achievement as a poet. ... Read more

Robert Penn Warren

10,139 words, approx. 34 pages

The importance of Robert Penn Warren has made itself felt in almost equal measure in American literary criticism, poetry, and fiction. Expounding a home-grown New Criticism, Warren and Cleanth Brook... Read more

Robert Penn Warren

13,972 words, approx. 47 pages

[This entry was updated by Victor Strandberg (Duke University) from his update in the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, volume 6, of the entries by him in DLB 48: American Poets, 1880... Read more

Robert Penn Warren

14,771 words, approx. 50 pages

Biography EssayRobert Penn Warren's reputation as one of the most versatile and talented of America's men of letters has grown steadily since the publication of his first work in 1929. Although he ach... Read more

Essays & Analysis (6)

Critical Essay by David B. Olson

1,607 words, approx. 6 pages

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Critical Essay by Monroe K. Spears

694 words, approx. 3 pages

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The Role of Self in All The King's Men

2,329 words, approx. 8 pages

The story of Jack Burden presented in All the King's Men shows his discovery of self and everything that affects and pushes this discovery. His story is told in two parts, his past and present. He avo... Read more

Irony in All the King's Men

1,608 words, approx. 6 pages

In Robert Penn Warren's prize-winning novel, All the King's Men, the narrator Jack begins as a panoptic cynic. He developed this philosophy over years of observing people and interpreting events tha... Read more

Themes from All the King's Men

853 words, approx. 3 pages

The knowledge which life brings to a person is often a rise to the meaning of life, but in All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren the reader comes to realize that knowledge can become the greatest d... Read more

All the King's Men and Margaritaville

1,455 words, approx. 5 pages

Many people in our modern world find themselves looking for others to lay blame on; constantly attempting to avoid responsibility. In the path through life, on the road to understanding, this avoid... Read more

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