Oriental Tales are a popular form of literature- such examples include the One Thousand and One Nights collection. They involve exotic locations, foreign characters, desert chieftains, and romantic plots involving young maidens. Story-telling narratives were a popular form of entertainment. However, Samuel Johnson's Rasselas: A Prince of Abissinia is a unique Oriental tale, because it dispenses with action and romance in favour of philosophical debates. It is a picaresque in tone and the narrative is a series of episodes loosely linked in the form of travelling to various destinations. By turning the genre on its head, Rasselas could be considered an "Anti-Novel" for its structure and content.
Rasselas is a wealthy prince who is deeply unhappy with his life and yearns for something more. In addtion, his sister is unhappy, and the philosopher whom he befriends is also discontent with various places and ways of life he has encountered on his travels. Despite being next in line for the throne, Rasselas is not keen on becoming a king, and he compares the valley to a prison. His other brothers and sisters are too content with the Happy Valley and thus have no desire to leave. As a result, Rasselas, his sister, the philosopher, and the maid leave the Valley and embark on a journey for a new way of life. Instead of being an adventure-travel narrative, there is nothing of the sort in the story. The travellers encounter various ways of life such as a solitary monk and a pastoral community, but they are surprised to learn those who adhere to these lifestyles are damaged or affected negatively. However, the one moment where it appears to contain action is when the maid gets kidnapped, but Johnson surprises the audience by revealing that the supposed abductor only wants to teach her astronomy. By the last chapters, there is a notion of stasis in the conclusion in which nothing is concluded or wrapped up. While waiting for the Nile to lower so they can return home, the characters each settle for a way of life which is not exactly what they envisioned. Rasselas, in particular, resigns himself to the idea that he will most likely be a king.They seem to have realized that pure happiness is not fully attainable, and it would look like they are opting for second-best. It is both less than satisfying for the characters and inconclusive to readers.
Based on what I took from the narrative, Rasselas is not what one would consider a novel. Rasselas the character is an introspective, critical man who thinks but does not act, grow, or experience much. Whereas some might call the text "more of an essay than a story", I would have to disagree, because Johnson undercuts the expectations of the reader at every turn and does different things with the genre. The physical, sensual world is mostly absent from the text, and there is no romantic interests for Rasselas or his sister. Due to his ailing mother, Johnson wrote the story as a means of paying for her care, but she eventually died while he was working on it. When looking at the downbeat ending, it makes one imagine how the story would have turned out if she lived. Johnson did not intend to pander to the interests of those who preferred novels to scholarly articles or essays. Based on these reasons, Rasselas can be considered "the Anti-Novel" in its fresh approach to the Oriental tale.
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