Machiavellian Tactics In Frank Underwood's House Of Cards

Scattered throughout history are political figures, such as Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler and Russia’s Rasputin, that have gone to any means necessary to achieve the highest power position available. The fictional genre of literature and media has also encapsulated characters with this philosophy. One of the most popular, contemporary examples is the Netflix original series House of Cards. House of Cards tells the story of Frank Underwood. The house majority whip that was passed over for Secretary of State and afterwards pursues a revenge that pushes himself into the Presidency. Like Hitler and Rasputin, Frank finds that to avenge himself, he is willing to push the boundaries of what is legal and commit the most heinous crime of murder. Before

While Frank manipulates many people over the entire Netflix series, some of the most important ones within the series include his wife Claire Underwood, Congressman Peter Russo, and the President Garrett Walker. Each of these relationships are exploited using Machiavellian tactics for Frank to gain the power that he needs to accomplish his end

Both have their own goals in life and strive for power within their respective careers. This is one of the only relationships within House of Cards where both parties benefit, but due to this there tends to be more conflict involved. This conflict also tends to surface more often when Claire begins to rule her decisions through her emotions, something Frank never does. When it comes down to it, Claire knows that the decision she made to marry Frank would be better than marrying out of love. The audience experiences this in the end of episode eleven season one. After Claire seeks out her former lover to hurt Frank, she makes the choice to come back to him. This is because in the end while she may want passion within her relationship she sacrifices that for the good of her company. Throughout the first two seasons it becomes clear that when it is called for, Claire can be just as ruthless as Frank. However, as season two ends and up until halfway through the fourth season, she grows apart from Frank because he has not delivered in what he promised her. “She has no patience for his failure, not after all she has sacrificed…because she has delivered on her end and it is now his turn” (Palm 49). This is the one instance where Frank has tried the same maneuver he has used on his other relations and it has backfired. This is also an instance where Frank deviated from the Machiavellian principle: