Willie: The Mirror Image of Mason City’s Society

Last week, we had our first discussion about All The King's Men.  This discussion kept me thinking about the role of Society v. The Individual.  Luckily, I will be looking for it throughout the entire novel and will be able to look at this theme with greater understanding each coming week.  Nonetheless, the first reading assignment (chapters one and two) truly opened my eyes to the role of the individual in Mason City.  My favorite quotation throughout the novel so far is, “the beer came, and the bottle of pop” (25).  Out of context this quotation obviously has no significant meaning to life, but when it is read with the rest of the passage, the realization hits that the beer and bottle of pop are metaphors.  When Willie is out with some men, he decides to order a bottle of pop rather than the beer that everyone else is ordering; he is pressured into ordering the beer yet still sticks to his bottle of pop.  When the drinks are served, it is quite easy to tell who is the black sheep of the group since the pop stands out from the beer.  This scene takes place before Willie had come to power; when he was young, naïve and hopeful.

The same lesson takes part in his decision for Willie’s participation in the election.  He describes what he feels is important in his speeches, yet barely dents the election.  However, later on he conforms to the people and only tells  them what they want to hear rather than what he feels is important and gets higher in the election.  None of the people of Mason City cared about him before he conformed to their beliefs, yet now they fawn over him because he caters to what they want rather than what he feels is necessary to talk about.

A quote from chapter three describes exactly what Willie turns into when it is described that, “if there weren’t any people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people” (184).  I believe this describes Willie to a tee since he started out as an individual who created himself, but as he became more and more corrupted he slowly became a person created by society.  He is no longer himself; he is just a mirror image of the people.  Now, if the people disappear, he will no longer be himself and will lose the person who was created by society.  He now lives for the elections, speeches and pretty much the people of Mason City; everything he does is for one of the three.  Without Mason City, Willie no longer exists because Willie is no longer himself; he is now Mason City’s society’s creation.

He began as a nice man who was the black sheep of the town and now we see him as the corrupted part of society that Mason City turned him into; this sad truth will be the reason for Willie’s demise.