The Delusion of Agency: The ‘Choice of Life’ as a Circular Prison in Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas
Introduction
Samuel Johnson’s The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) occupies a unique space in the eighteenth-century literary canon, functioning as both an Oriental tale and a rigorous philosophical treatise on the human condition. Unlike the Enlightenment faith in the perfectibility of human institutions, Johnson posits that the search for a singular, optimal “choice of life” is a fundamentally flawed endeavor. By examining the protagonist’s escape from the Happy Valley, this paper argues that Johnson utilizes the motif of the “choice of life” not as a mechanism for self-realization, but as an expression of the vanity of human wishes. The pursuit of a definitive life-path is exposed as an illusory project, one that inevitably results in the realization that freedom of choice is, paradoxically, a form of intellectual and existential entrapment.
The Myth of the Happy Valley
The narrative begins with the “Happy Valley,” a site of totalized satisfaction. Johnson’s descriptions of this valley evoke a pastoral, idyllic enclosure where the inhabitants are “permitted to possess every thing but the objects of their desires” (Johnson 4). Here, the lack of external conflict creates a vacuum of meaning. Rasselas’s dissatisfaction does not stem from an objective lack of resources, but from the subjective awareness of potentiality—the recognition that he could choose something else. This represents the first stage of the illusion: the belief that unhappiness is a symptom of one’s current environment rather than a constituent of the human consciousness. Rasselas’s departure is therefore an act of rebellion against the stasis of perfection, predicated on the false assumption that the “outside” holds a solution to the “inside.”
The Geography of Discontent
As Rasselas and his companions travel through Cairo, they systematically sample various “choices of life”—the life of the hermit, the life of the man of learning, the life of the pastoral shepherd, and the life of the wealthy merchant. Johnson employs a structural repetition that serves to undermine the validity of each choice. Each figure they encounter is ostensibly an “expert” in their own chosen existence, yet each is demonstrably miserable. The hermit is plagued by loneliness; the astronomer, despite his scientific rigor, succumbs to the delusion that he controls the weather; the wealthy are besieged by anxiety.
This repetition functions as a pedagogical tool for the reader, mirroring the futility of Rasselas’s intellectual pursuit. Johnson demonstrates that the “choice of life” is essentially a choice between different modalities of suffering. The illusion is not that there is a right choice, but that choice itself is the vehicle for salvation. By the time they reach the conclusion of their travels, they are forced to confront the “conclusion in which nothing is concluded.”
The Existential Burden of Choice
The irony of Rasselas’s quest is that his capacity for reason—the very thing he relies on to make an “enlightened” choice—is the primary obstacle to his contentment. Johnson suggests that human nature is characterized by an insatiable desire for the future, which prevents the subject from inhabiting the present. In a famous critique of Enlightenment rationalism, Johnson writes:
“He who has nothing to hope, and nothing to fear, must be either happy or miserable by the same causes, if he were not always in some degree wanting or afraid” (Johnson 82).
This constant state of “wanting” defines the human condition. The choice of life is illusory because it implies a finality that life itself denies. One cannot “choose” a life and then cease the process of choosing; rather, one is perpetually burdened with the necessity of re-evaluating one’s existence.
Narrative Containment and Intellectual Closure
The structure of Rasselas—a journey that leads back to the point of origin—is a deliberate narrative choice. It mirrors the classical topos of the Vanitas, wherein all human striving is seen as ultimately hollow. By denying the reader a traditional resolution, Johnson forces an acknowledgement of the inherent limitations of the human mind. The “choice of life” is therefore not a solution, but a diagnostic category. It serves to identify the restlessness of the soul that refuses to accept the finite nature of human happiness.
In Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas, the breakdown of Enlightenment rationalism is not merely a thematic abstract; it is embodied in the specific, tragic trajectories of the characters themselves. Johnson uses his cast to demonstrate that whenever characters attempt to “choose” their life through pure, detached reason, they inevitably encounter the limits of human knowledge and the resurgence of irrational desire.
The Prince: The Empirical Trap
Rasselas himself acts as the primary vehicle for the failure of Enlightenment methodology. He approaches the “choice of life” as a scientific experiment, believing that by traveling and observing, he can accumulate sufficient data to deduce the “best” way to live.
- Evidence: His journey to Cairo is a systematic sampling of lives. However, he discovers that the “life of the hermit” is solitary, the “life of the shepherd” is dull, and the “life of the wealthy” is filled with anxiety.
- Rationalist Failure: Rasselas’s rationalism fails because he assumes that happiness is a variable to be discovered in the environment. He is blinded by the Enlightenment fallacy that the world is a legible text that can be decoded by a systematic, reasoning mind.
The Astronomer: The Hubris of Reason
The Astronomer is perhaps the most devastating portrait of rationalist monomania in eighteenth-century literature. He represents the extreme end of Enlightenment inquiry, having mastered the most complex discipline of the age: the movements of the stars.
- Evidence: His expertise in mathematics and physics leads him to the belief that he has gained control over the natural world, eventually concluding that he is responsible for the regulation of the weather and the timing of the seasons.
- Rationalist Failure: Johnson shows that reason, when divorced from human interaction and communal reality, curdles into madness. The Astronomer is “the emblem of the rational mind in isolation.” His fall into delusion proves that pure reason, once stripped of external reality, creates its own internal—and often dangerous—logic.
Imlac: The Sage of Limits
Imlac serves as the voice of Johnson’s skeptical pragmatism. He is the most “enlightened” character, yet he is also the one who most frequently warns the others of the limitations of their rational quests.
- Evidence: Imlac explicitly tells Rasselas that the desire for a perfect “choice of life” is a form of vanity. He reminds the Prince that “human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed” (Johnson 48).
- Rationalist Failure: Imlac’s role is to act as the internal critic of the narrative. He represents the “enlightened skeptic” who realizes that the human condition is fundamentally resistant to the neat, categorized solutions proposed by early Enlightenment theorists.
The Hermit: The Miscalculation of Solitude
The Hermit represents the Enlightenment belief in “ascetic rationalism”—the idea that one can achieve wisdom by removing oneself from the “irrational” influence of society.
- Evidence: After living in isolation to pursue wisdom, the Hermit confesses to the Prince that he is miserable and yearns to return to the world of men.
- Rationalist Failure: His “choice” was perfectly logical on paper—remove all distractions to reach peace—but it failed to account for the fundamental human need for community. His retreat shows that rational planning cannot override the biological and social nature of human beings.
Conclusion
The “choice of life” in Rasselas is a phantom, a construct of the imagination that serves to distract the protagonist from the reality of their own internal void. Johnson’s text does not offer a prescription for living; instead, it offers a sobering analysis of why prescriptions fail. By subverting the reader’s expectation of progress—both in the narrative and in the philosophical quest—Johnson illustrates that true wisdom lies not in the discovery of the “right” life, but in the resignation to the necessity of existing within an imperfect, and perpetually changing, world. The prince of Abissinia remains a prince of contradictions, trapped by the very intellect that he hoped would set him free.
Works Cited
Gabbard, G. N. “The ‘Choice of Life’ in Rasselas.” English Studies, vol. 50, no. 1-6, 1969, pp. 297-302.
Johnson, Samuel. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Edited by Jack Lynch, 2008. Jack Lynch’s Webpage, https://jacklynch.net/Texts/rasselas.html. Accessed 7 Mar. 2026.
Kolb, Gwin J. “The ‘Choice of Life’ in Rasselas: A Note on the Unity of the Work.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 53, no. 3, 1954, pp. 368-372.
Rasselas, I., and H. H. R. J. The Vanity of Human Wishes: A Study of Johnson’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2012.
