Samuel Johnson's Story of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, which follows Rasselas and his companions as they seek the life choice that generates more happiness, influenced Johnson's generation so profoundly that the period from 1750 to 1784 has been nicknamed "the age of Johnson." Along with Johnson's philosophical reflections pondered throughout this satirical moral apologue, Johnson's writing was, and remains, renowned for its style. Writing with a parallel neoclassical structure, with periodic sentences that emphasize the last words of sentences, and with constant negation, Johnson's style became a distinctive feature of his work and inspired numerous authors to use his techniques in their own work. Given the emphasis on Johnson's style by his contemporaries and modern audiences, one must ask whether there is significance to Johnson's techniques beyond simple writing style. By describing parallel incidents that foreshadow the novel's inconclusive conclusion, emphasizing the heaviness of his novel's ending that changes the novel's entire argument, and denying Rasselas' entire trajectory with his conclusion, Johnson constructs the novel's events to mimic his literary style, thus amplifying the importance of his literary style. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The events of the novel, centering on Rasselas' journey to discover the nature of happiness, parallel Imlac's journey and conclude that absolutely nothing has changed, the novel denies the possibility of completing his entire mission, pursuing happiness. In this way, Johnson's style, used throughout Rasselas, anticipates the novel's conclusion, foreshadowing the stunning "conclusion, in which nothing is concluded" (111). Despite the seemingly nihilistic conclusion with which the novel leaves the reader, the reader can sense Johnson's sense of hope, not simply by mentioning God and eternal life, but by understanding the parallel sequence of events in Rasselas, which allows one to anticipate another. possibility for Rasselas to pursue happiness. Ultimately, by discerning how Rasselas' sequence of events parallels Johnson's writing style, one can discern that the negative conclusion, which seemingly reverses the novel's purpose, is more promising than it initially appears. In particular, the novel's concluding chapter exemplifies Johnson's writing. style, which involves parallelism, periodic sentences and negation. The description of Nekayah's unsatisfied resolution makes use of parallelism: “She desired first to learn all the sciences, and then proposed to found a college of learned women, in which she would preside, which, conversing with the old and educating the young, she could divide his time between the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and to raise models of prudence and models of piety for the following age" (112). By placing two antithetical phrases side by side, each beginning with a gerund (“conversing with the old” and “educating the young”) and including the parallel phrases “models of prudence” and “models of piety”, one can perceive the use of parallelism by by Johnson. The novel's final sentence is periodic and relies on the last word to make its essential point, the point that turns the entire novel on its head: "They deliberated for a while what should be done, and decided, when the flood would have stopped." , to return to Abyssinia” (112). Finally, the novel portrays denial in the characters' expression of conclusion that “none” of their goals areachievable: “Of those desires that they had formed they knew well that none could be obtained” (112). Clearly, Johnson uses parallelism, periodic sentences and negation as part of his writing style in Rasselas. These writing techniques increase as their presence is felt in the structure of the plot: as Rasselas' journey mirrors the journeys of Imlac and while Rasselas and Pekuah make mistakes parallel to their past mistakes, the novel's ending can be understood as a postponement of events, thus changing the reader's perception of the possibility of the better “life choice”. Imlac's journey foregrounds the parallel journey of Rasselas and his companions in search of happiness and their ultimate abandonment of their quest. At the beginning of the novel, Imlac tells the prince his story of how he came to live in Happy Valley, describing: how he came from a wealthy family; how he learned and came to realize that all men, even the wise, have flaws; how he traveled and grew tired of his surroundings; how he learned all he could in the lands he traveled; how he returned home and failed in his efforts there; and how he eventually retreated to Happy Valley to escape the grim realities of life. Imlac concludes his story by admitting to Rasselas that he, like the other workers in Rasselas' employ, is unhappy. As the privileged Prince Rasselas leaves the Happy Valley to travel, to seek the best way to achieve happiness through the accumulation of knowledge by seeking various ways of living, and to finally return to the neighboring Happy Valley, one can sense the way in which the Rasselas' journey parallels that of Imlac. The novel also depicts parallelism by illustrating how Rasselas and Pekuah repeat their past mistakes in the novel's conclusion. At the beginning of the novel, after having decided to leave the Happy Valley, over the course of twenty months Rasselas manages to please himself with imaginative reveries of his imminent journey into the outside world, until he realizes with regret what he has done: He considering what might have been done in the time that had passed and left nothing real behind them. He compared twenty months to the life of a man. “In life,” he said, “one must not count the ignorance of childhood or the imbecility of age. It takes a long time before we can think, and we soon cease the ability to act. The true period of human existence may reasonably be estimated at forty years, of which I have left out the twenty-fourth part.” (15)This quote shows that Rasselas, realizing how quickly twenty months have passed, understands that he should use his time wisely and make use of his life while he is physically able to do so (before the imbecility of age) comes towards you). Although this realization pushes Rasselas to finally reinvest himself in finding a passage out of Happy Valley, he ultimately fails to use this knowledge to make his life choice at the end of the novel, returning to the utopian Happy Valley rather than live a productive life. , a fulfilling life. Pekuah fails to even learn from the trials of their journey as he ultimately avoids the unknown and any changes in life. Through Pekuah, Johnson demonstrates the problem of surrendering to one's imagination. The Arab has the opportunity to kidnap Pekuah only because she retreats into the tents while her imagination gets the better of her and her fear prevents her from accompanying her mistress. When Nekayah asks her what she fears, Pekuah replies, “'Of the narrow entrance. . . and the terrible darkness. I dare not enter a place that will surely be inhabited by restless souls. The original owners of theseterrible vaults will hurl themselves before us and perhaps lock us up forever'” (71). This fear of entering the unknown “terrible darkness,” a dark “darkness” in which her safety is uncertain to her, can be understood as Pekuah's fear of change. Because of his uncontrolled imagination, Pekuah fears the dark unpredictability of the cave, just as one might fear the unpredictability that accompanies change in life. However, Johnson demonstrates the problem of living in fear of change and unpredictability as this fear only serves to place Pekuah in an unpredictable situation in the boring menagerie. Although it seems that Pekuah has learned his lesson at the end of the novel after his experiences with the Arab and his menagerie, since he insists that he will go with Nekayah to the catacombs despite his past fear (108), he ultimately fails to recognize the importance of change in life by the novel's conclusion: "She was tired of expectations and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in an unchanging state" (112). His desire to be "fixed in an unchanging state" is obviously possible in the confined and unchanging Happy Valley, but, returning to fear the unknown and change, Pekuah fails to pursue his happiness. Understanding the way in which Rasselas's life parallels that of Imlac: "The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded", which can easily be perceived as nihilistic, can be understood as a postponement of the novel's conclusion. As Samuel Johnson battled depression, he struggled greatly with his physical problems (he had scrofula and poor eyesight, was deaf in one ear and probably has Tourette's syndrome) and wrote to Rasselas to pay for the funeral of his late mother, it is understandable to say that the conclusion of the novel is meant to talk about the futility of life, just as Rasselas' journey with his companions may ultimately seem senseless to the reader since they apparently learned nothing. However, given the repetitive structure of the novel explored above, it can be concluded that, just as Imlac left Happy Valley to accompany Rasselas in his pursuit of happiness, Rasselas, whose life clearly parallels Imlac's, will likely one day will venture out of the Happy Valley, accompanying some young people who wish to gain perspective in choosing life. Therefore, in understanding the deliberately parallel structure of Johnson's novel, one can perceive that Rasselas simply postpones an ending. Johnson's evocation of God provides further support for this more hopeful reading of the novel, which is made possible by the perceived parallelism between the lives of Imlac and Rasselas. While the novel ultimately instills in the reader that the pursuit of happiness is a fruitless endeavor (as Johnson recounts in his poem The Vanity of Human Desires), it also leaves the reader with hope that there may be more beyond life. As Imlac and Rasselas discuss the "Supreme Being" (31) and as the main characters consider the nature of their own soul, which was created by the "Being" (111), it can be assumed that in the fictional realm of the novel God clearly exists. As a Christian who invokes God and the concept of eternal heaven, Johnson clearly intends to provide a sense of hope to his readers, as Nekayah states shortly before the novel's conclusion: "'For me,' said the princess, 'the choice of life is become less important; I hope from now on to think only of the choice of eternity"" (111) By evoking heaven through "the choice of eternity", Johnson, who feared the emptiness of life, clearly intends to provide his Readers hope that even if the search for lasting happiness seems futile, they can still anticipate it.