All the Kings Men

The character Jack in this novel is a troubled man who seems to always want to escape reality. He's like a person who is trapped in his past and doesn't want to get out. Perhaps the present is too painful and unplesant or the past is too impactful. Whatever it is, he's a character who is living in the past. He is infatuated with sleep as he uses sleep as one way to escape the present. This is apparent as he always talks about his dreams. This relates to the Great Sleep as sleep is used to escape responsibilty and reality. The Great Sleep talks about dreaming of sleep and just waking up to sleep again. This unhealthy infatuation with sleep results from Jack's desire to constantly escape reality. Similiar to the Great Sleep, Jack's belief in the Great Twitch also shows his desire to escape reality. When Jack discovers that Anne, the love of his life, has been having an affair with Willie, he suddenly flees to California. Their affair was so unexpected that it devastated Jack. Anne had been a symbol of his pleaseant past and by stripping away this link to his past, the pain was unberable. Although Jack ended up marrying Lois, he still never got over his love for Anne. He stated in the book that he married Lois just for her looks and once he started to analyze her as a person, he became disgusthed. Fleeing to California is another way Jack is attempting to escape reality as the reality is too miserable and painful. During this journey, there are allusions made to Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the American belief that Americans were destined to conquer and rule all of America during the 18th century. During the era when Manifest Destiny was popular, Americans had not conquered the western part of America so Jack's escape to the west is definitely an allusion to Manifest Destiny. Symbolically, he was conquering the west. Also this journey leads Jack to believe in the Great Twitch. On the way back from Califronia, he picks up a man who has a twitch in his eye. This leads Jack to conclude that life is like an involutary twitch. Basically, the Great Twitch is the belief that all the things in life are uncontrollable and are similiar to involunatry twitches. One can furthur conclude that because life is uncontrollable, life is without purpose. In essence, life is predetermined and one can not control the outcome of his or her life. This theory allows Jack to escape reality because by believing in the Great Twitch, he technically had no control over the outcome of his relationship with Anne. Also, he had no control over Anne having an affair with his boss and that this was all fate. This ideology allowed him to cope with reality in a sense although he was technically escaping reality. In essence, the Great Twitch ideology allowed Jack to avoid all blame and guilt as he believed that he had no control over what was going on. This is a dangerous ideology because it allows one to avoid guilt and blame while they could've actually controlled the outcome.