Maryclaire has been dead for four months, and my grief comes and goes in waves. Day after day, as time moves ineluctably forward, I can no longer predict when and where I will find solace from or exacerbation of the emotions wrought by the loss of my longtime friend. In one instance, as I posted in January, a normally tedious e-commerce pitch in my inbox from Ann Taylor, one announcing a shoe sale, spun me back in time, and the sight of sparkly silver flats—a pair that Maryclaire would have loved—made me weep. The truth is, I treasure these emotionally chaotic moments, whether I laugh or cry, because they allow me to be close to a friend I’ll never see again.
One unexpected instance of deep emotional impact occurred when I read The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) by Samuel Johnson. This task was accomplished for the Early Atlantic Reading Group at the university where I work. The only detail that I remembered about the author as I read his book is that he wrote the celebrated work within one week, and he did so as his mother lay dying in the next room. In fact, Johnson wrote Rasselas to pay for his mother’s funeral. Of course, I found myself questioning how the author’s emotional state affected the text.
Rasselas is the name of a prince from Ethiopia—in this instance, a highly idealized and ahistoric kingdom—who lives in the fictive Happy Valley. There, all his physical wants are tended. However, he is restless and so escapes with the poet Imlac, his sister Nekayah, and her servant-cum-friend Pekuah. They seek interactions with people and places in nearby Egypt that will allow them—an ultimately futile search—to understand contentment and cultivate a sense of well-being, which is their ultimate goal in life.
One unexpected instance of deep emotional impact occurred when I read The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) by Samuel Johnson. This task was accomplished for the Early Atlantic Reading Group at the university where I work. The only detail that I remembered about the author as I read his book is that he wrote the celebrated work within one week, and he did so as his mother lay dying in the next room. In fact, Johnson wrote Rasselas to pay for his mother’s funeral. Of course, I found myself questioning how the author’s emotional state affected the text.
Rasselas is the name of a prince from Ethiopia—in this instance, a highly idealized and ahistoric kingdom—who lives in the fictive Happy Valley. There, all his physical wants are tended. However, he is restless and so escapes with the poet Imlac, his sister Nekayah, and her servant-cum-friend Pekuah. They seek interactions with people and places in nearby Egypt that will allow them—an ultimately futile search—to understand contentment and cultivate a sense of well-being, which is their ultimate goal in life.
The book is not supposed to be about death and its attendant emotions, but several chapters address the grief Nekayah feels over the passing of Pekuah. Her servant-cum-friend is kidnapped by Arabs outside the pyramids (Chapter 33), and the Ottoman soldiers policing the area fail to recover her. Nekayah is inconsolable. However, after the passing of several months (Chapter 36), this Ethiopian princess slowly becomes less sorrowful. She finds herself laughing spontaneously, but then chastises herself for feeling joy. The princess becomes distraught by the fact that she is able to move forward in her life, and so she resolves to set aside time each day to mourn the loss of her friend. Her life, however, is a busy one, and the cares of the day interfere with this pledge. She begins to put off the quiet moments of reflection devoted to thoughts of her deceased friend. Reading this so soon after Maryclaire’s passing, I feel Nekayah’s deep love for her friend…and her subsequent guilt for moving on with her life.
Johnson understands something profound about human interactions. But, as he waits for his mother to pass, he indulges in a fantasy that all of us who grieve have at some point (or, more often, many points). As it turns out, Pekuah is not dead! She has been living happily in the desert and learning astronomy! She returns to the fold and shares stories of her adventures with her loved ones! Nekayah’s grief as well as her guilt for moving on with her life is thus artificially resolved through a coup de théâtre, and I curse Johnson for being a coward. I will never know how Nekayah would have finally come to terms with the grief as well as her guilt for being yet another human being, one who just can’t long live in misery. It may have helped me to have such a literary road map.
Johnson understands something profound about human interactions. But, as he waits for his mother to pass, he indulges in a fantasy that all of us who grieve have at some point (or, more often, many points). As it turns out, Pekuah is not dead! She has been living happily in the desert and learning astronomy! She returns to the fold and shares stories of her adventures with her loved ones! Nekayah’s grief as well as her guilt for moving on with her life is thus artificially resolved through a coup de théâtre, and I curse Johnson for being a coward. I will never know how Nekayah would have finally come to terms with the grief as well as her guilt for being yet another human being, one who just can’t long live in misery. It may have helped me to have such a literary road map.
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