Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Analects, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Restraint
Honesty and Integrity
The Individual vs. The Collective
Self-Mastery, Discipline, and Improvement
Summary
Analysis
Speaking of the Chi family, Confucius mentions that they had “eight rows of eight dancers each” perform in their courtyard. For him, this is intolerable. He is equally upset that the Chi family will perform a sacrificial offering on Mount T’ai. This is not in keeping with the rites.
Clearly, Confucius thinks that the wealthy Chi family is indulgent. The eight dancers they have perform shows a lack of restraint, that they overly indulge in leisure. His frustration that the family plans to violate the rites to perform what is presumably a prestigious ceremony that it is not traditionally their place to perform shows that he values tradition over material wealth.
Themes
When the Master himself enters the Grand Temple, he asks questions about many things. After he leaves, someone comments that it would seem that Confucius knows nothing about the rites—why would he ask so many questions if he did? When he hears that this comment has been made, Confucius says that asking questions in and of itself is part of the rites.
In this moment, Confucius’s willingness to ask questions even about a topic on which he is widely considered an expert demonstrates his humility. It also shows that for those who follow the Way, all of life is an extensive learning process.
Themes
When he hears that Tzu-kung wants the end the tradition of killing sheep on the day of the new moon, the Master says that he understands that the other man doesn’t want to part with the price of sheep. But Confucius himself is loath to part with the destruction of the rite.
Again, Confucius communicates the importance of preserving tradition over amassing material wealth. Tzu-kung doesn’t want to lose the material value of the sheep, but for Confucius, the rites are worth far more than that.
Themes
The Master hears two of his disciples discussing different ways to create the altar to the god of the earth. On hearing them list out the various practices, he reminds them not to condemn the rituals of the past or to “argue against what is already accomplished.”
This is another moment in which Confucius demonstrates his own deep-rooted traditionalism. By framing the rituals of the past as accomplishments, he warns against overly criticizing the practices of the ancestors.
Themes
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