Irvin Ehrenpreis sees an aged Johnson reflecting on lost youth in the character of Rasselas, who is exiled from Happy Valley.[19] Rasselas has also been viewed as a reflection of Johnson's melancholia projected on to the wider world, particularly at the time of his mother's death.[20][21] And some have interpreted the work as an expression of Johnson's Christian beliefs, arguing that the work expresses the impossibility of finding happiness in life on earth, and asks the reader to look to God for ultimate satisfaction.[22][23] Hester Piozzi saw in part Johnson in the character of Imlac, who is rejected in his courtship by a class-conscious social superior.[1] Thomas Keymer sees beyond the conventional roman à clef interpretations to call it a work that reflects the wider geo-political world in the year of publication (1759): the year in which "Britain became master of the world".[1] Rasselas is seen to express hostility to the rising imperialism of his day and to reject stereotypical "orientalist" viewpoints that justified colonialism. Johnson himself was regarded as a prophet who opposed imperialism, who described the Anglo-French dispute for rule in North America as a dispute between two thieves over the proceeds of a robbery.[1]
Orientalist interpretations
According to academic Abdulhafeth Ali Khrisat, Johnson follows a tradition of “academic studies of orientalism in the 18th century… west of the oriental studies which mainly focused on the Turkish language, culture, institutions and Islam.” [24] This tradition of study shows up in Rasselas through the use of Imlac, who has traveled to the West and seen its advancements. This led to philosophical comparison between the West and the East in the story. Through this, Johnson implies that the West is superior to the East, using Imlac as a mouthpiece.[24] This negative portrayal of the East is done in the beginning of the story with the description of the Happy Valley. This description details how this place is meant to be a paradise or utopia, but also alluded to the idea of a prison. This setting, coupled with the western idea of happiness seen in Rasselas, brings out a portrayal of Arab and Muslim culture as being oppressive. According to Khrisat, this is a result of Johnson’s portrayal of the east using European ideas.[24]
Comparison to Candide
While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire, also published early in 1759 – both concern young men travelling in the company of honoured teachers, encountering and examining human suffering in an attempt to determine the root of happiness – their root concerns are distinctly different. Voltaire was very directly satirising the widely read philosophical work by Gottfried Leibniz, particularly the Théodicée, in which Leibniz asserts that the world, no matter how we may perceive it, is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds". In contrast the question Rasselas confronts most directly is whether or not humanity is essentially capable of attaining happiness. Rasselas questions his choices in life and what new choices to make in order to achieve this happiness. Writing as a devout Christian, Johnson makes through his characters no blanket attacks on the viability of a religious response to this question, as Voltaire does, and while the story is in places light and humorous, it is not a piece of satire, as is Candide.
Borges thought Candide "a much more brilliant book" than Rasselas, yet the latter was more convincing in its rejection of human happiness:
A world in which Candide – which is a delicious work, full of jokes – exists can’t be such a terrible world. Because surely, when Voltaire wrote Candide, he didn’t feel the world was so terrible. He was expounding a thesis and was having a lot of fun doing so. On the contrary, in Johnson’s Rasselas, we feel Johnson’s melancholy. We feel that for him life is essentially horrible.[6]
