ABSTRACT
The marked differences between the introduction and the conclusion can be traced through Warren’s direct and indirect references to the dawning nuclear age and features of an incipient Cold War culture. As Jonathan S. Cullick notes in Making History: The Biographical Narratives of Robert Penn Warren, Jack, despite evidence to the contrary, continues to suggest “that the meaning of history was in the facts, absolute and isolated from subjective consciousness”. Willie’s hard-boiled view that there is inevitably something compromising to be found in everyone’s past may account for why Jack works for Willie rather than finding another job with a newspaper. The distinctions in authority and taste evident in the contrast between the “pulps” and “slicks” are clearly important for Warren’s hard-boiled narrator, and Jack’s increasing acceptance of picture magazines measures a change in his attitude towards women, the family, and mainstream culture.
