all the kIngs men :: essays research papers

     The amount of change people go through and through in their lives is remarkable. One day, a person can be a devious criminal, while the next day that same person could cover a new leaf and become a saint. The change that diddlysquat goes through in All the Kings Men, by Robert Penn Warren, is comparable with(predicate) to that of the schizophrenic patient who receives a lobotomy. Although Jack undergoes no physical change, the events he witnesses change his personality, and transform him into an entirely new man. While Jack views the humans in a schizophrenic fashion, in the end he changes his philosophic mind frame and finds the cure for his disease. Jack does view the world in a schizophrenic manner. According to Websters dictionary, the psychosis for schizophrenia is a retreating from reality. Jack retreats from reality a lot. When Jack found out that Anne was having an affair with Willie, he disoriented himself from reality. He went west, to Long Beach, where he commenced with his cracking kip. The outstanding sleep was a very important thing for jack because it allowed him to avoid reality. He would sleep and everything else would go on. While in Long Beach, Jack thought that he had discovered the greatest thought he ever had. That thought was the great twitch, a belief that there are no consequences for lickions since they are solo twitches of impulses. This thought was probably the biggest attempt to evade reality. Believing in the great twitch, Jack set himself apart from the rest of the world. By thinking that no one could be blamed for anything, he dodged blame from himself. By performing out the great sleep and the Great twitch, he was able to act like a schizophrenic until he had a change in philosophical views. Jacks philosophical views changed, just as the view of the patient would sacrifice after the surgery. Jack was, in the beginning of the novel, a believer in The Great Twitch. He becomes, in the end of t he novel, a believer in the Spider Web Theory, a belief that all things are connected and every action has some effect on everything else. At the convulsion of the lobotomy, Jack comments that someone should baptize the patient "in the name of the astronomical Twitch, the Little Twitch, and the Holy Ghost, Who, no doubt, is a Twitch, too." Towards the end of the story, Jack "woke up one morning to discover that he did not believe in the Great Twitch any more.