Olivia Sheldon
Literary Traditions
The Prince
November 9, 2015
Examining Free Will Free Will as defined by Webster’s Dictionary is freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes of by divine intervention. In The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, the author chooses to define free will very specifically and explore its context in the role of a prince’s success or failure. While examining the theme of free will in The Prince we will also see how it connects with other texts, such as The Inferno and Oedipus Rex. Throughout these classics free will plays a huge role in understanding the goals and information within them. Machiavelli defines free will within the terms of prowess vs. fortune, which can be described as nature vs. nurture in modern day language. His idea was modern compared to medieval and renaissance thoughts, which looked to religions and ancient authors for reasoning’s of plagues, invasion and other disasters. They did not believe that one could prevent these tragedies. Contrary to this belief in the church and scholars, Machiavelli put his faith and confidence in the power of human…show more content… In this text I believe Dante focuses on how free will can be abused by humans. For in this case religion becomes a huge element within the text. Here he is stating that free will is when you decide to do an action on your own without the guidance of god. “Infernal punishment which unites the sinner to his vice, allowing him to wallow in his wicked moral choices, and to the purpose of purgatorial punishment which redirects the will towards virtue.” (Biunno). A lot of the focus in Inferno is what may happen to someone if they use too much free will in his eyes. "In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost" (Alighieri 11). This shows how he is constantly struggling with the balance of his own free will and following a divine
