Carmen Colosi ATKM Character List

Men:

1. Adam Stanton: Adam is a man of action. He sticks to his set of clean-cut morals and refuses move when he finds the circumstances dire. Jack was able to find Adams true weakness: doing good. Adam won't take a money bribe, refuses to be pushed by fear into the job, and has no need for personal gain. In the beginning of the book Adam starts out as a man who does things out of his need to help. For example when Adam is offered a bribe by Hubbert Coffee to ruin the building contract for the new hospital he gets so enraged that he punches Coffee. In this act Adam shows that he is able to put his personal differences aside and put the good of the community first. Adam despises that there is so much politics surrounding the act of helping others that he threatens to quit, but he continues in an attempt to help the people who are going to use the hospital. In the end, Adam takes a turn on the dark side when he is told about Anne`s affair with Willie and his father protecting the Judge in court. Adam`s worldview is shattered and his sense of right and wrong is ruined. He is so upset and angered that he shoots Willie Talos. But Adam is the victim of the circumstances he was in and he should not be penalized as a character for what happened to him.

2. Hugh Miller: Hugh has good morals and sticks to them. He is not one to waver and he was sure he did not want any part in the "Dirty" work that Willie was doing. Hugh wanted his hands clean from all the bribery and the corruption. Overall Hugh is one of the most honorable men in All The King`s Men.

3. Gov Stanton: Gov Stanton is, for the most part, a good person. He ran a good term and did for the public what was necessary without getting too much dirt on his hands. The only fault in Governor Stanton is the fact that he covered for Judge Irwin when the Judge took a bribe in order to keep his land. This can be justified however with the fact that the Judge only took the bribe in an attempt to keep his own home. The fact that the Governor covered for the Judge says that the Governor is compassionate.

4. Sugar Boy: Sugar Boy was, “Irish, from the wrong side of the tracks” (5). His job was to drive Willie around and act as Willie`s bodyguard. Sugar Boy loved and worshiped Willie partly because Willie valued Sugar Boy and because Sugar Boy came from a large family he did not get much attention. Sugar Boy progressively gets more and more attached to Willie as the story progresses. In the end Sugar Boy shoots Adam Stanton in an attempt to defend Willie.

5. Cass Mastern: Cass is an idealist who has just as much good in him as he does bad. Cass is an idealist who, like Jack, writes in journals. Cass assists his friend Annabelle in cheating on her loving husband Duncan. This is the part where Cass does wrong by his friend in sleeping with his wife and he, “lay in the very bed belonging to Duncan” (242). However when the affair is over and Duncan shoots himself because of it Annabelle sells her slave Phebe and Cass goes and tries to find her, “to buy her and set her free” (252). Cass does not find Phebe but frees his own slaves. Cass` good side and bad side cancel each other out and that is why he is in the middle of the men.

6. Judge Irwin:Judge Irwin was a judge in Burden's Landing, where Jack grew up, and Jack`s father. The Judge refuses to be a part of or support Willie Talos` campaign which can make him an honest man, however he also took a bribe from the American Electric Power Company, a player in an important lawsuit, in order to keep his land. This action was abuse of his power for his own personal gain and did not serve the justice that he was put in that position to do. The Judge was distraught about being blackmailed for this act and did not want to face and own up to what he did so he committed suicide. Not only did he abuse his power but when faced with the consequences, he chose to run rather than own up to what he did.

7. Jack Burden:  Jack is the main character in the book and the storyline, for the most part, follows what he does. Jack is an idealist who is very complex in nature. In some ways Jack turns a blind eye to what he does for Willie in that he has a sort of numbness when it comes to his dirty work, allowing him to complete his tasks. He is a student of history and he says that, “a student of history does not care what he digs up” (223). That is Jack`s way of numbing himself to the truth and reality of his kind of work. Jack`s black book is full of the “dirt” he digs up on people. Because Jack knowingly nums himself he is able to hurt his friend`s families, blackmail someone he has always looked up to, and force his best friend into a job he dislikes. Jack blindly follows and does what Willie asks.

8. Tom Talos: Tom was a character with a lack of heart and emotions. He grew up in an unstable family. Tom made the active choice to drive drunk with a girl in the car and he ended up getting in a devastating accident. He was able to crawl away from the scene and run all the while leaving the girl barely alive and on the ground. This shows a lack of remorse toward others and almost psychopathic ways of thinking. However, Tom cannot be completely blamed for he had Willie as a father and looked up to a man with no remorse.

9. Tiny Duffy: Tiny is the person who caused the death of Willie and Adam. Tiny was strung along by Willie for years and did his bidding only to stab him in the back. Tiny called Adam and told him that Anne was sleeping with Willie and that his father had protected the Judge when the Judge had taken a bribe to throw a case. Tiny had the chance to throw the Talos administration and he took it. He told Adam and shattered his view on the world. When Jack confronted Tiny about it all Tiny could muster to say, to care about was, “It wont stand in a court,” meaning that he had little remorse for what he did and how he did it (577). Like Many others in the book Tiny was someone that Willie strung along, “to spit on him,” and Tiny was a victim of the Willie Talos effect and got fed up with it (576).

10.Willie Talos: Willie is the cause of most of the grief in the book, aside from Cass and Annabelle. First off he has multiple affairs, thus cheating on his wife Lucy. He leaves Lucy at home with Tom abandoning them both for his extravagant life and only coming back to them when he absolutely needs them. First he has an affair with Sadie, stringing her along and then abandoning her. Then he has an affair with Anne which he knows will hurt Jack, Sadie, and Adam.He takes advantage of Anne`s need for a man of power. Willie doesn't care about who he is hurting or putting down for his own personal advancement. He bosses and abuses his power over Tiny Duffy and Sugar Boy. He makes dirty deals and digs up dirt on well meaning people. He made Jack dig up dirt on Judge Irwin, whom he knew Jack was close with, and then made Jack go present this blackmail to the Judge. Willie`s one redeeming quality is that he did all of this in order to build a hospital, of course for his own political advancement. Willie shows signs of being a psychopath. People are drawn to him and he only uses them when he deems it necessary.

Women:

1.Phebe: Phebe was by far the most innocent and respectable of the characters in the entire novel. She was born into slavery and although she accepted her fate without fighting, she never intentionally hurt anybody. The only harm we ever saw her do was to give Annabelle her wedding ring after Duncan has died. The fact that, “She[Phebe] knows--she will always look at me,” drove Annaelle crazy and she sold Phebe off (248). Phebe was being an obedient slave in giving Anabelle her husbands ring back, and she meant no harm in the gesture. If anything it was an act that showed her lack of greed because Phebe could have stolen the ring and ran off with it. Phebe is a victim of the circumstances and acted in the way of basic human kindness

2. Lois: Lois was also a victim of circumstance. Unfortunately, we don't really get to see Lois as a person because the story is through Jack's eyes. She never did anything that was meant to intentionally hurt someone.

3. Lucy Talos: Lucy is overall a good woman and one of the best people in the book, however like the rest of Willie`s clan she follows him blindly. Lucy has compassion and she does many great things in the book; care for Willie`s dad, take care of Tom, and takes on the responsibility of caring for Tom`s baby. She does follow Willie blindly because, “he was a great man...I have to believe that” (593). She uses that as a coping method to deal with the fact that her husband, “made bad mistakes” (593). This is simply human though. She needed a way to deal with what life had handed her so she turned a blind eye to Willies faults.

4. Jack`s Mom: Jack`s mom was for the most part a good and loving mother. Like every mother-son relationship they fought and disagreed but Jack always felt that if he needed to, he could go home and stay with her. Her one flaw is that she kept the identity of Jack`s father a secret from Jack which kept him forever guessing. Eventually she reveals the truth to Jack, but by that time it is too late. Had she told him earlier the whole situation could have been avoided and possibly Jack would have been able to have more trusting relationships.

5. Annabelle Trice: Annabelle is a woman who got bored with her marriage to Duncan and decided to seduce and start an affair with Cass Mastern. She was the one who acted upon the sexual tension between the two by saying, “‘Cass...Kiss me” (241). It was on Cass that he kissed her but Annabelle was the one who initiated the affair. When Duncan committed suicide and Phebe found out about the affaire Annabelle went crazy and sent Phebe, “down the river,” so she “won't look at me anymore like that” (249). Phebe had friends and a husband and Annabelle ruined Phebe`s life just because she couldn't handle her own guilt. Annabelle was one of the most bitter and indecisive characters in the book.

6. Anne Stanton: Anne is very like Annabelle in that she is indecisive and takes part in adultery. Anne decides that she loves Jack and wants to be with him so she leads him on and then she decides that he is not driven enough so she slowly breaks off their engagement. Anne starts an affair with Jack`s married boss, Willie. Anne knows that in starting her affaire she would be hurting her brother, Jack, Lucy, Tom, Saide, and even herself. Anne is selfish in that she keeps calling Jack and asking him for favors after they break off their engagement and even when she has an affaire with Willie knowing that Jack loves her and will do anything for her. At times it can be so much that one could argue that she abuses the power she knows she has over him.

7. Sadie: Sadie also had an affair with Willie and would get jealous of Anne because of her affair with Willie. Out of all of the women Sadie was the most selfish and the most unstable. Sadie hurt Lucy with her affair and knowingly spoke with Lucy and had casual conversations with her. Sadie was bitter and wanted revenge on Anne and the Stanton family. Willie told Sadie that he was going to commit to Lucy and Sadie couldn't handle being abandoned and was so angry that she provided Tiny Duffy with the information he needed to take down the Talos administration. Sadie told Tiny Duffy to call Adam Stanton and tell him the news about Anne and his father at the same time. She told Jack that, “He [Willie] was throwing me over...For that Lucy. After all I had done. After I made him...Just like a flash I knew I'd kill him” (571). This proves how Sadie let herself become so emotionally dependant on Willie that she decided to give Duffy the information he needed to kill Willie. If Sadie couldn't have Willie then nobody could.