The Bildungsroman Tradition: The Philosophical Maturation of Jack Burden in All the King’s Men

Bassam M. Al-Shraah

Abstract


This paper aims to sketch out the transformation that Jack Burden—the main character in the novel—had gone through. With all the political leanings in Warren’s All the king’s Men, Jack burden seems to have had developed his own theories of dealing with life and people all through his life. He has always suffered an inferiority complex, rendering himself unworthy of being a real human being. This paper claims that Jack’s philosophical transformation has passed through three distinct phases; he had changed from a carefree idealist to a man of moral responsibility much similar to a Bildungsroman style of character maturation. Difficult times that Jack Burden has gone through caused his awakening at the end of the novel ushering his maturation


Keywords


bildungsroman, escapism, Machiavellian, philosophical transformation, nihilism, determinism, maturation.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.5p.145

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