Machiavelli's Discourses

a) In The Prince, Machiavelli indicates at the outset the two types of government:

All the governments and forms of dominion that have had and now have rule over men have been and are either republican or princely (Machiavelli The Prince 95).

At the beginning of his second chapter, he states that he will omit a discussion of republics "because I have elsewhere dealt with them at length" (Machiavelli The Prince 96), meaning in The Discourses.

Machiavelli describes the nature of both types of government in his two books, but his intent is not to be descriptive but to be normative, to indicate how each type of government should rule. Leo Strauss points this out, noting that the writings of Machiavelli promote "value-judgments" (Strauss 181). This is especially clear in The Prince as he offers advice to the prince on a wide variety of topics related to governance and the maintenance of control. In The Discourses, the primary model used by Machiavelli is that or Rome, and he c

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though, the situation can be seen in terms of whether the law is being maintained or broken. The slave revolt is a violent breaking of the social order, and it occurs not because Captain Delano is too despotic but because he does not maintain enough control or have enough awareness to see what is coming. Captain Delano is the innocent man who faces evil and does not recognize it at first. It is only when he can no longer ignore the evidence that something is wrong that he takes action and learns the secret of the San Dominick. The events unfold in a dramatic fashion until he learns the answer, and then the action changes to a matter-of-fact recital of evidence, events, and testimony. For Captain Delano, it is the moment when he sees Babo holding a knife to Cereno that changes his view of the world and shows how innocent he has been. This is the event that brings a change in outlook to Delano. c) The use of Delano as the central character followed by the reader increases the suspense in this story. Not only is the reader faced with a mystery to be solved, but he or she is also faced with the question of when Delano will also see that there is a mystery and will do something about that knowledge. Delano represents a weak p
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Approximate Word count = 2730
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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