All The Kings Men portrayed the relationships established between father and son both spiritually, as well as physically. It made the reader consider the ties that are deeper than flesh and blood, the ones that lied within the relationships crafted in this novel. The father and son relationships between Jack Burden and the many fatherly figures introduced to him over the years, Willie and Tom, and Governor Stanton and Adam changed these characters and developed them throughout the novel.
Jack Burden, for the greater part of the story, believed Ellis Burden (The Scholarly Attorney) to be his father. Jack always had a sense of longing for a relationship with Ellis, which crumbled when Jack was only six years old, when to Ellis abandoned him and his mother.
Not until Jack was a grown adult did he understand Ellis had left because of an affair between his mother and Judge Irwin. Although Jack never admits to it, we come to realize how desperately he needed a father. When he visited Mr. Burden in the mid 1930s, he met George, who Ellis had taken in. George was unable to function like a normal person, an unfortunate soul whom Ellis nurtures as a father would a son. When Jack watches Ellis feed George chocolates, he remembers his father bringing him sweets. I looked at the old man over there and my guts went warm and a big lump seemed to dissolve in my chest- as though I had carried a big lump around in there for so long I had got used to it and didnt realize it had been there until suddenly it was gone. (Pg. 300) The relationship between Jack and Ellis remained strained, and when Jack questioned Ellis of the past, of his years spent in Burdens landing, Ellis response was that time is dead. (pg. 302)
In the beginning of the story Jack acknowledges Judge Irwin to have been like a father. We later discover that the relationship ran deeper than emotionally, they were also bonded through blood. Because Jack never had a father growing up, (the scholarly attorney was out of the picture) it seems Jack never was able to be completely loyal to the man who had been there all along.. He was so caught up in Ellis Burden, that he never appreciated the man right before him who had given Jack so much. Jack took advantage of the Judge, and attempted to blackmail him. It was not until after the Judges suicide that Jack truly understood the depth of their relationship. The Judge was Jacks father. His actions regarding the judge were greatly influenced by the third man who played a fatherly role after coming into Jacks adult life, Willie Stark.
Perhaps it was Willies strong sense of self; Willie always knew what he wanted, and never stopped working for it. Jack on the other hand, had many times where he pulled away from society (The Great Sleep, The Great Twitch). Jack admired Willie, and eventually devoted his entire career to personally assisting Willie, The Boss. Jack watched his hero rise from a small town hick, who grew up on the dirt roads and gully washes of a north-state farm (who knew) what it was to get up before day and get cow dung between his toes so he could set off by sunup and walk six miles to a one-room, slab sided schoolhouse. (Excerpt from speech at barbeque, pg. 136) He idealized Willie, who remembered everything and seemed to have all the answers. He once assured Jack that one day when Willie was the President of the United States, Jack would be right there alongside him, living in the White House. During one of Jacks Great Sleep periods, Willie came in, offered him a job and helped him piece his life back together. Perhaps Willie was the one man that Jack was ever truly devoted to; he chose to do wrong to Judge Irwin, for Willies benefit.
Willie was a biological father as well. His son, Tom, was incredibly privileged; being the Governors son and a football star allowed him the lifestyle of crazy partying and casual sex. Willie made the ultimate parental mistake of allowing Tom whatever he desired. He tried to live the life he never had through his son. When Tom got into a drunken car accident, injuring a teenage girl, Willie did not take the wake-up call being thrown in his face. When his wife lividly told Willie that Toms lifestyle needed to change, Governor Stark responded that no son of his was going to be a sissy. When Tom gets the alleged slut, Sibyl Frey pregnant, her father, one of Willies opponents men, insisted that Tom marry Sibyl. Willie would rather give up his spot in the race for senate than see his son be married off as a bribe. This in part shows selfless devotion to his son; however it shows stupidity in parenting, and the many ways the situation could have been prevented.
Another governors son was Adam Stanton. He lived in his fathers mansion many years after his passing, and romanticized the values his father had laid during his lifetime. Jack Burden described Adam as a man raised to have a picture of the world in his head, and when it doesnt conform in any respect to the picture, he wants to throw the world away. (pg. 371) Adam Stanton saw himself as a part of a legacy of great men, the son of Governor Stanton, and the grandson of Judge Peyton Stanton and the great-grandson of General Morgan Stanton (pg. 370) he idealized the system they had established. He did not want to work for Willie Stark who he found to be corrupt. He wanted to do as his father had done, and spread righteousness and justice. When he found about Governor Stanton illegally protecting the judge, his world was shattered. That created a change in Adam.
The relationships formed in this story are similar and different, right and wrong. They are about men who wanted the best and caught themselves in evil. The relationship formed between a son who so badly wanted a father, and a father who was so distraught from the past, that he could not care for his son. Another father who so much loved that son, he chose to protect his son with the secret of his creation; a father who was the silent protector but never received the title he deserved. The relationship between a father who was born with so little, he wanted to give his son the world; a father who wanted his son to experience the greatest glories, that he never set boundaries, thus destroying his son. The relationship formed between a father who established a life of success and value; that raised a son to want to live to those standards, and who was crushed when he came to understand that all humans do evil. We watch these relationships change during the course of their lives, to grow and crumble. All of these characters were intertwined, with Jack at the base of everything. He absorbed the love that surrounded him, but kept within himself, afraid to truly love.
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