Jack`s Relationship with Women
Jack Burden, in All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, is an idealist when it comes to business and people but a practical man when it comes to love and women. Jack is afraid of love and of women who hold power over him therefore he stays away from the women he is emotionally invested in and chooses to be around women that hold no power over him. Jack has a love-hate relationship with his mother in that he likes her “womanly” way and sent but he despises her choices in life. After this relationship with his mother Jack is subconsciously keen to push away all relationships with women in which he is emotionally invested. When Jack and Anne are thinking about getting married and starting their life together Jack realizes that he, “loves her,” and that she, “ wouldn't go to the limit,” with him (417). Anne pushed Jack to go into law, which he hated, but did anyways because he wanted to please her. Subconsciously Jack started to push Anne away: he did not make it a point to fully understand her reasoning behind asking him to do law or try to stop their break-up. After a couple months of having “rows,” the pair, “finally fell apart from each other,” and went their separate ways (421). Jack almost immediately married Lois who he describes as, “damned good looking...and edible,”(422). He and Lois were, “perfectly adjusted sexually,” and in Jack's eyes Lois was a, “juicy, soft, vibrant, sweet-smelling machine,” that, “satisfied the appetite” (423). however Jack, “loved Lois the machine...not Lois the person,” so they eventually went their separate ways (424). Had Jack not needed that emotional connection he would have been perfectly happy with Lois whereas Jack could never have been happy with Anne simply because he was emotionally attached to her and was not comfortable with one woman having that much control over him.
I agree, I think that Jack is indeed afraid of women in whom he is emotionally invested. Like a lot of things, he is terrified of trying, and doing his best. It seems that the only aspect of his life that doesn't terrify his subconscious is his work with Talos. Another potential reason for this is the uncertainty of his childhood. His relatively aristocratic upbringing and his eventually liberal set of ideals could possibly have made Burden into an unsure person; never quite knowing if his beliefs are correct or just.
ReplyDelete