In All the King's Men, Jack Burden repeatedly has difficulty relating to the world and is constantly plagued by cynicism and apathy for the people around him. One of the causes of this is his mother, Mrs. Murrell, who Jack never speaks of except when he returns home to Burden's Landing. Because of his mother's relationship with men, Jack feels neither close nor distant towards her, creating a strange state of limbo between her mother's love and the physical love she offers to her many husbands. Jack is therefore negatively affected by his marriage choices, distrusts women, and cannot have a healthy love life due to her influence when he was a child. Due to his mother's ability to attract men, the question of the identity of a father figure in his formative years, and the Oedipal tendencies his mother displays towards him, Jack has difficulty having a healthy relationship and relating to his children. family. First, Jack's mother has the uncanny ability to attract men of all ages and backgrounds, despite her age, and "she was the kind of woman who had to have men around and had to make them dance to her tune" (Warren 110) to feel safe and loved. This has led to many marriages, all of which, except the current one to the Junior Executive, which Jack had "wondered how permanent they were" (Warren 115), have ended in divorce. Jack recalls that as a young man he saw all these marriages disintegrate and as a result he never expected a continuous lifestyle or a father figure to look up to. The strange thing about Jack and his mother is that they both pretend that their relationship isn't strained by these problems every time he returns home to Burden's Landing. However, he can't stand being around his mother... middle of paper... he trusts his mother, and often fails to take many of the women around him seriously. Throughout the novel, Jack is unable to fully contemplate or experience a truly healthy relationship, no matter whether it is between him and his mother or observing the interactions between Willie and his wife Lucy. His inability to pursue a healthy relationship with Anne, a woman he sincerely loves, blocks him emotionally and makes him cold towards the world and the people he works with. But the origins of all these problems originate in his early years in Burden's Landing, where his mother's needs eclipsed those of her son, and consequently hurt him later in his life. Ultimately, the strained relationship between Jack and his mother distances him from any possibility of a normal family life and continues to create tension well into his adulthood...