Many people in our modern world find themselves looking for others to lay blame on; constantly attempting to avoid responsibility. In the path through life, on the road to understanding, this avoidance can never hope to remain intact. Jimmy Buffett and Penn Warren's Jack Burden share this avoidance, but as they progress, they both learn to accept the truth of personal liability. Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville revolves around the theme of accepting responsibility, paralleling Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men.

In the beginning, both Jack Burden and Jimmy Buffett deny any possibility of personal responsibility, grasping on to an ignorance of such a concept. In Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett drinks heavily to escape his present reality, feeling at least a tiny iota of regret for his careless drunkenness, he attempts to ignore responsibility claiming he "know[s] it's nobody's fault" (Buffett, 10). Buffett's ignorance allows him to perpetuate the careless...