Political Ethics In Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men

Robert Penn Warren has presented profound philosophical accomplishments and unique perspective in his writing, which is beyond the reach of many other writers. He has made remarkable contribution to the development of the southern literature in America and helped it to reexamine its own status and prospect, hence plays an important role in the history of American southern literature. All the King’s Men is an excellent novel published in1946and winning the Pulitzer prize in the next year. It is based on the life of Huey Long, the State General of Louisiana in the1930s. The novel mainly tells about the tragedy of a collection of political figures represented by Willie Stark, the incarnation of Huey Long, and reflected Jack Burden’s political views. More importantly, the novel has broken down the limitation of individual experience and conveyed universal political ethical meanings. As a result, the novel has been widely acclaimed since its publication. It has profound thematic meanings, involving issues including American politics, history, culture, race, religion and region. At the same time, in creating the novel, Warren not only shows his concern to the political, economic and cultural reality in American south, but also infuses his inner feelings to human nature and moral philosophy, providing the novel with rich content in philosophy. The theme of political ethics throughout the novel also suggests the concern of Warren as a white middle-class southern writer to the situation of political ethics in the south of America. This thesis will not only discuss the elements of political ethics behind the tragedies as well as the crisis of political ethics reflected by the tragedies, but also analyze the representation and the causes of crisis of the political ethics in combination with the social ethical context and eventually concludes the political ethical views held by the novel.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces Robert Penn Warren, his achievements in novels as well as All the King’s Men. The second chapter concentrates on the analysis of the crisis of political ethics behind the tragedies. The third chapter discusses the representation and the causes of the crisis of the political ethics reflected in the novel from the perspective of society and individual. First, all sectors of society, in facing the transition from plantation economy to capitalist economy, abandon the traditional morality of the agricultural society and display the weakness of human nature in front of interests, which reflects not only the shrinkage of morality, but also the moral wasteland in southern society. Moreover, the south at the beginning of the capitalist economy is short of a complete system of laws to control people’s behaviors, which makes it easy for politicians to evade the restriction of laws. Personally, all kinds of political figures, in dealing with social issues including political problems, are either in the charge of free will, ignoring the restriction of law, or lack of legal consciousness. Politicians tend to put their personal interests first and have a confusion of their personal identity. The fourth chapter aims at discussing the views of political ethics reflected in All the King’s Men. The focus on the problems of political ethics reflects the complex attitude towards the chaotic political ethical situation on the one hand and suggests a thought of political ethics centering on justice, equity, democracy and the rule of law on the other hand. The fifth chapter in the conclusion presents that the concern of Warren as an intellectual to the situation of political ethics in the south of America has profound literary and social meanings to the theme of American literature and the development of narrative models.