I enjoyed this story MUCH more than Byrd. The whole idea of one character wishing to look outside the box and WANTING to submerge himself into the real world, outside the "happy valley" was interesting to me. He's going against the grain and wanting to find meaning for his life. The idea of the iron gates Rasselas is trying to escape from seem to almost represent the gates of heaven and he's wishing to leave this utopian society in order to see the miseries of the world.
The language was much easier to understand and I enjoyed the poet, Imlac's philosophical quotes on human life. They are quotes that I seem to have heard similarly one time or another.
Much of the story can be applied to human life today, such as, thinking some people have it much better than you do or that some people seem to be so happy in their day to day existence. Underneath, however, that may not be true. Even if one seems to have it all, that does not guarantee their happiness. Sometimes you must endure the bad in order to be grateful and happy for the good that you have.
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So far, I have really enjoyed reading this novel. At first I was a bit aggravated with the author's style of writing because the subject and verb of the sentence were often separated by lengthy modifiers, but once I got past that I was able to really read the meaning of the sentences. Rasselas' story reminded me of Jasmine from Aladdin because even though he had everything, he just wanted to get out and experience life as a normal person. I had trouble relating to him, but once he began to explore for knowledge's sake and stop dwelling on the fact that he was stuck in the "happy valley", he was much more tolerable and interesting.
My favorite part so far was Chapter seven, "A dissertation on the art of flying." The book is so rich, and even though flying seems mundane now, it was really cool to read about flying as such a huge novelty and scientific impossibility. I just thought it was pretty fascinating to think back to all of the things that are so normal to us that were such oddities in Rasselas' time, like indoor running water, the air-conditioned garden room, and wind chimes.
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