Chaos Upon Their Return To Brittany example essay topic

In The Prince, Machiavelli establishes five sets of principles addressing achieving and retaining political power and the ways in which to ensure success. The five sets of principles are praise vs. censorship, liberality vs. parsimony, feared vs. loved, faith by honesty vs. trickery and fortune as a woman. Ideally, during the first comparison, he is trying to establish the fact that men, whom are successful leaders, share a two-sided demeanor. The one side is that of the virtuous man for the people that need only see the good in people.

The other side is the man of vices for the followers who see beyond the visions the eyes behold. To be successful a leader must understand the difference and be willing to take hold of his vices if that is what the situation requires. The second excerpt conveys the opinion that to be success is achieved more often from being stingy and appearing liberal, than from being liberal and appearing stingy. The stingy leader gains wealth and arms without taking from the people. Therefore, in later ruling, he is able to post war upon those that oppose him without taxation. This, in the eyes of his followers will show intelligence and self worth and leave him liberated in the minds of his people.

The excerpt over love and fear is the most intriguing to me and holds the most truth. As a manager of a large company, I completely agree with the concept that your people have to have some fear of you in order to respect you. If there is no fear of consequence to wrong doings, then they are more apt to violate the rules. Whether it be the rules of the company, or in Machiavelli's case, rules of the kingdom. The excerpt over faith contradicts my theory on that subject. Machiavelli believes you sometimes need to contradict some of the promises you make bye deceiving your people with a quick tongue.

On the contrary, I believe that the smart leader sees the mountain in the distance of the track layers and has the ability to plan for the mountain to be moved aside without the laborers ever knowing it was there. Fortune as a woman is a truly ingenious concept. So many times the fall of a man is related to the chaos created by a woman. In addition, as Machiavelli contends, it is the leader or man with the foresight to instill fail-safes against this chaos that will ensure his longevity and survival. I believe Eliduc abides by most of Machiavelli's rules in the story of his ventures. He displays extreme loyalty to his king in Brittany even after being exiled to another land and falsely accused of crimes against the king he love so much.

He displays cunning and whit once in the land of Exeter as he fights for the King of the land. Eliduc adopts the principles of rule that Machiavelli establishes in many other incidents. However, Eliduc could have benefited greatly as a reader of Machiavelli on one concept, "Fortune". Eliduc left his wife Guildeluec in Brittany and once in Exeter fell madly in love with the King's daughter, Guilliadun. Eliduc established no fail-safes with Guilliadun, set no boundaries, and even forsakes the King and his wife by his love for her. This mistake of love for a woman, without the foresight of chaos, closed his eyes to the probabilities of future realities and indeed opened the door to chaos and heartache upon his return to Brittany.

This also supports my altered view of deceit as a leader. Had Guilliadun known Eliduc had a wife in Brittany, by her reactions, she would have never fallen so deeply in love with him in the first place. This deceit is birth of part of the reason "fortune" turned to chaos upon their return to Brittany.