Relation+to+Edgar+Huntly


 * Although they were written at different time periods and different countries; both //The Prince// and //Edgar Huntly// explore the themes of power and human nature. **

**Power:** Through Edgar and Clithero Brown explores loss of power.

Edgar and Clithero become somnambulists,which leads them to lose power over their free will. As a result they both go in search for their identity in a journey through the wilderness. In this journey both characters start to become savages and both characters begin to encounter obstacles. Edgar deals with these obstacles with moral while Clithero deals with them through impulse.


 * Examples of Edgar's morality:**
 * "No alternative was offered, and hunger was capable to be appeased, even by a banquet so detestable" (Brown 160).
 * "My wishes were now bent not only to preserve myself, and to frustrate the future attempts to these savages, but likewise to relieve this miserable victim" (Brown 168).
 * "Let the fate of my parents be, likewise, remembered. I was not certain but that these very men were the assassins of my family....No words can describe the torrments of my thrist. Relief to these torments, and safety to my life were within view. How could I hesitate." (Brown 171).


 * Examples of Clithero's impulsiveness:**
 * "It was probable that Clithero had fled far away, but, should he have concealed himself in some nook or cavern within these precincts" (Brown 91).
 * "Clithero believed his solitude to be unapproachable" (Brown 107).
 * "I could not but asset to this mournful conclusion, though death was better to Clithero than life" (Brown 267).* "It appeared that Clithero, had, during the night risen from his bed, and gone secretly forth"(Brown 270).

At the end of the novel Edgar is able to leave his savagery behind and reintegrate himself into society, while Clithero's savagery leads him to destruction. One may infer that the reason for this is the different societies that each of these men were accustomed to.


 * Human Nature:** According to Machiavelli, it is in human nature to want a ruler that provides stable conditions that provide what is in the best interests of the people. By analyzing the ways in which Brown depicts the way on which the two main character of the novel achieve/fail to achieve social maturity through their journey in the wilderness, it can be concluded that none of them would posses the ideal characteristics that would make him a succesful ruler.


 * **Edgar would represent a moralist ruler which would make him prone to attack.
 * Clithero would represent an impulsive ruler which would make him a tyrannical ruler that would lead the people to want to overthrow him.


 * Which character in the novel would prove to be the ideal ruler due to the fact that he is able to explore both morality and impulse without becoming to extreme?**


 * Sarsefield would be the ideal ruler because he would be both a moralist and impulsive ruler which would provide the people with stable conditions. **