--All the President's Men is based upon the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, especially the line, "All the King's horses and all the King's Men, couldn't put Humpty together again." (More about this on our final). Why do you think the reporters chose this title for their book (and movie)? Be detailed.
The children’s nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty relates to the situation of President Nixon throughout the Watergate Scandal. Humpty Dumpty’s lyrical nursery rhyme states:
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses and all the King’s Men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
This image of Humpty Dumpy as a representation of President Nixon was adapted by Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 film, All the President’s Men as well as the major Watergate Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, book as a way to not only capture audiences attention by satirically comment on President Nixon’s overall political administration. Like Nixon, Humpty Dumpty sits on a protective wall which is then shattered and unable to be “put back together by others. This leads to Humpty‘s, as it did Nixon’s‘, demise or fall.
In the first line of the nursery rhyme the “wall” in which Humpty sits on, in reference to President Nixon, are the array of less politically important people who were involved in the Watergate operation. These less important political partners of Nixon created a “wall” around the President and, for a short while, deterred sparse media attention and the FBI’s investigation from the Oval Office. These men, whom where portrayed in All the President’s Men, through characters such as Hugh Sloan, one by one took the blame for the President and distracted from the facts that the Watergate Scandal actually reached Nixon as well as his top advisors such as H.R. Haldeman.
Next, the second and third line refer to Nixon having a great fall once he could no longer stay sitting on his protective “wall” of those less important then he. Once Bernstein and Woodrow got a hold of information that led to Nixon, and was also confirmed by FBI spy Deep Throat, there was no more hiding that could be done by the President. This, on top of the fact that all his men, as paralleled in the last two lines of Humpty Dumpty, couldn’t help him, caused him to fall. As soon as Nixon tumbled, he was unable to get back up and like Humpty was now broken and cracked. His integrity, dignity, and pride were shattered while his first political term and his part, the Republicans, were left wounded by the Scandal. No longer were political leaders in America trusted.
Overall, the title of the film’s reference to Humpty Dumpty not only made sense symbolically but also was able to catch the eye and attention of it’s audiences. The title All the President’s Men being parallel to the line in Humpty Dumpty, “All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men,” also shows the power of Bernstein and Woodrow . Two men with only a typewriter and a publisher were able to take down the President of the United States of America to the point were he couldn’t be put back together again. An act that is far more complex then that of a nursery rhyme.
movie source: www.
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