Grace Strasen CCQC #2

Heading West

Historically, the idea of heading West is much like the idea that the grass is greener on the otherside. The United States started out as simple colonies along the East Coast, soon enough striving west with the dreams of Manifest Destiny ringing in their ears. Getting California from Mexico granted the United States territory from coast to coast, fully fulfilling their dreams. Soon the whispers of California’s gold and great riches of rolling hills drifted to the east coast, and the dreams of heading West were born. California and the west were soon seen as the places of hope, dreams, and a new life away from many truths that American’s wished to not face. Jack Burden in All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren, seeks this freedom: “After a while, the sun was in my eyes, for I was heading west. So I pulled the sun-screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. And kept moving west. For West is where we all plan to go someday. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered” (Pg. 376). The knowledge of Anne’s affair with Willie Talos leads Jack to the West, a place you go when all hope is lost and one seeks greener grasses. This “discovery”, in the metaphorical form of a letter representing Anne’s affair, is recurring idea in the book. It can appear as a foreshadowing of a climax in plot: “It was like the second when you come home late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you lean and pick it up, but don’t open it yet, not for a second. While you stand there in the hall, with the envelope in your hand, you feel like there’s an eye on you… But you open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is know” (Pg. 13). Jack’s determination of uncovering the truth at all costs is what causes his inevitable breakdown. “The end of man is knowledge” (Pg. 13) is a crucial theme of the book and is released through Jack’s hope to run away from the truth to the one place all who seek the same hope go: the West. “There is innocence and a new start in the West, after all” (Pg. 434) Jack’s release he finds in the West promotes the idea that the West is used as an escape from knowledge.