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Rasselas Prince Of Abissinia Analysis

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Nicole Hewitt English 102B June 4, 2018 Final Paper Samuel Johnson’s The History of Rasselas Prince of Abissinia depicts a young prince named Rasselas who lives a seemingly happy and gilded life in his Abyssinian birthplace Happy Valley. The Happy Valley is an imaginary place in Africa filled with a diverse range of flowers and numerous pastures with animals peacefully dwelling, that is “wide, fruitful, and supplied its inhabitants with the necessaries of life” (8). Though this paradise that is confined by mountains and a heavily protected gate, intended to keep those in within. The massive palace stands above a lake divided into different courts all with roofs that “turned into arches of massy stone joined with cement that grew stronger with …show more content…

Contained within this fortification are also secret subterranean passages and unsuspected cavities that enclose treasures. The priceless valuables and secrets are all contained within the enigmatic façade of the palace in which Rasselas has lived all his life. Samuel Johnson infiltrates the depiction of a pastoral utopia by conceptually illustrating it as a prison. Johnson emphasizes these qualities about the fortress to allegorically portray the prison that is contained within the author’s own unconscious mind. The imagery he provides is allegorical of the chronic depression that the author experienced throughout his life and particularly prior to the writing of this novel. Johnson wrote Rasselas following the death of his mother to help pay for her funeral expenses. Johnson injects his pessimistic view of life, and alludes to the whimsical …show more content…

Rasselas feels numbed by his unchanging life, and would rather witness miserable circumstances just so that he could feel something rather than muted emotions. It is the lack of stimulation, not grief that causes Rasselas to be unhappy. Rasselas for the first time takes control of his life and makes an executive decision, setting out on a quest. This primary act on behalf of the main character Rasselas highlights the archetype of a hero’s journey, a fable in which the protagonist learns a lesson by the end. Rasselas initially enters the novel dubious to the role he plays in his own path of life, but eventually his self-determination drives him to exercise his ‘choice of life’. He didn’t have something to strive for, or work towards which left him with no feeling of gratification. There were no obstacles that he had to overcome, which resulted in his self-identity lacking a person reward system. He was given everything he could have ever wanted and more, but it never felt deserved or earned in Happy

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