Atkm Questions

Chapter 1:

1. Willie is an extremely effective speechmaker for many reasons. He does not bore his audience with minute details, and mostly talks about general ideas. He also is a charismatic leader, appealing to his constituents by trying to seem like “an average man” who just wants to see his “pappy” on his day off.

2. The “Repeal” is the repeal of Prohibition, the 21st amendment of the Constitution, which forbade alcohol in 1920. The Repeal came in 1933. The setting of the book is in summer of 1936, in a small town called Mason City, which seems to be in the south, due to some of the language and phrases used, i.e., “nigger chopping cotton” and “Lawd God”.

3.  Jack Burden is the personal aide to Willie Starke. Before having become Governor Starke’s personal aide, he was an history student and a newspaper columnist. He is a curious person, who seems eager to know. He is the narrator of the book, who tells the story in a dry, somewhat detached, but very honest tone. Although his alliance clearly lies with Willie Starke (this becomes evident after Jack promises to “dig” secrets for Willie about the Judge, who’d been like a second father to him), I think he will be a reliable narrator because of his past as a history student, which drives him to want to find and tell the truth about events.

4. At the end of Chapter 1, the Boss tells Jack to do some digging about the Judge, and to “make it stick”. Then, the last sentence of the chapter reads “Little Jackie made it stick, all right.” This reveals that Jack did indeed find a secret about the Judge that changed many things. The secret probably changed the Judge’s entire reputation since it “stuck”. However, it is not revealed what the secret is, or what it is about.

Chapter 2:

1. Voters in the novel are portrayed the way many books and movies portray southern people. It seems as though they are rural, small-town people who don’t have a lot of money. Jack and everyone else (Willie, etc…) seem to...