The central theme of Rasselas is the choice of life, or as I will call it, the pursuit of happiness. It's a theme as old as time, no one seems truly satisfied with the cards they're dealt in life and are always trying to improve their situation. What does it take to be happy? wealth and luxury, imagination and solitude, or is happiness even real. Prince Rasselas is determined to find the answer to this question. This essay will examine the relationship between imagination and happiness, as well as the benefits and dangers that accompany the imaginative faculty. Rasselas knows he wants to leave Happy Valley to find happiness, but this dream itself shows one of the downsides. too much imagination. “I have watched the sun rise and set for twenty months, lazily contemplating the light of the sky… Only I have made no progress, but I am still helpless and ignorant… I feasted on intellectual luxury” (15 ). He spends hours in solitude imagining what the outside world must be like. Rasselas suddenly realizes that he is wasting time that could have been used ...