The Pursuit of Happiness in Rasselas

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The central theme in Rasselas is the choice of life, or as I will refer to it, the pursuit of happiness. This is a theme that is as old as time itself, nobody really seems happy with the cards they are dealt in life and are always trying to better their situation. Just what does it take to be happy; wealth and luxury, imagination and solitude, or is happiness even real. Prince Rasselas is set on finding the answer to this question. This essay will look at the relationship between imagination and happiness, and the benefits and dangers that go along with the imaginative faculty.
Rasselas knows he wants to leave the Happy Valley in order to find happiness, but this dream in itself shows one of the downsides of too much imagination. “I have seen the sun rise and set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light of heaven… I only have made no advances, but am still helpless and ignorant… I sat feasting on intellectual luxury” (15). He spends hours in solitude imagining what the outside world must be like. Rasselas suddenly realizes that he is wasting time that could have been employed ...

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