CHARACTERS:
RASSELAS:
He is the prince of Abissinia. He is the fourth son of the king. Because of that, he doesn't have a hope of being a king. He tries to enjoy life. His every need is met. He has a tutor who tells him every thing about life.
When he is 26, he realized that he is bored. He explains the reason of his boredom that he can not live like an animal. To him, living in the palace is living like animals. He is curious and wants to have some knowledge. As a result of that he is unhappy.
Rasselas' goal is to make a "choice of life". He wants to search for happiness outside the happy valley, so he successes to escape from it. He clearly knows the type of happiness that he wants to discover. "Happiness" said he "must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty". He demonstrates great determination in his search and doses not want to give up.
IMLAC
Imlac is the wise teacher and guide who accompanies Rasselas on his travel in search of happiness and the meaning of existence. He travels to a lot and different countries to learn. That's why Rasselas makes him his guide because he knows about the outside world.
His own sense that happiness was inevitably elusive and perhaps illusory, his own tendency relies on hope for the future, and his own paradoxical reluctance to live –emotionally- in the future.
Imlac rehearsed upon the various conditions of humanity.
NEKAYAH
She is the prince's sister. She is courageous to take the decision to go and search for happiness with her brother.
She is restless like her brother. She is searching for ease of life. She is always motivated by hope, that's why she joined her brother in his journey to search for happiness. She came to the same result at the end of the story when she realized that real happiness cannot be earthy it only can be granted by God in the other life.
She gets more mature because of the experience. She had been too long accustomed to the conversation of Imlac and her brother to be much pleased with childish levity