Sophia Miller CCQC 2

Why is it that everyone who is seeking some big answer in life heads West?

In chapter 6 of All the King's Men, Jack Burden, the narrator headed West when he heard that his young love, Anne Stanton, has become a mistress to his boss, Willie Talos. Jack, like many others, went West to escape the present and to GO somewhere, because, like it did for many pioneers, the mysterious West seemed to hold answers. Jack has always had trouble dealing with the present. His affinity for history began when he was struggling with law school and his relationship with Anne. He explains that he "read American history, not for school, not because I had to, but because I had, by accident, stepped through the thin, crackly crust of the present, and felt the first pull of the quicksand around my ankles" (p418). Jack lost himself in the study of history because he could not bear to experience his present relationship falling apart. It is no surprise then, that when he found out about Anne and Willie, Jack searched for a way to escape. He headed West because "West is where we all plan to go someday" (p376), and because it was just where he went. During his trip West, Jack reminisced about his early romance with Anne, and other parts of his past. He said "I was moving back through time into my memory. They say the drowning man re-lives his life as he drowns. Well, I was not drowning in water, but I was drowning in West" (p378). Jack escaped the present by returning to the past, which he later realized was probably not a healthy way of coping. The West seemed to give him exactly what he needed, however. The West gave Jack and many others a chance to not only get away from the current problem, but to encounter 'very great truths,' revealing to Jack in the end that "there is innocence and a new start in the West, after all" (p434). Jack's realizations during his short trip to the West allow him to continue with his job and life and bring him a little closer to accepting the present.