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
The Master says that it is important that a man has the spirit of the rites. Without this spirit, he will grow exhausted when he tries to be respectful. He will be timid rather than cautious, intolerant rather than forthright, and unruly rather than courageous.
Confucius implies that one must have passion for the rites in order to truly follow the Way. He believes that without this deep belief in the rites and their value, people will feel exhausted by having to exert so much effort at following the Way’s practices.
Themes
The Master praises one of his students, who eats and drinks “the meanest fare while making offerings to ancestral spirits and gods with the utmost devotion proper to a descendant.” While his everyday dress is shabby, when it is time for him to perform a rite, he wears all of the proper robes and caps. While his own home is lowly, he devotes all of his energy to building irrigation canals.
Here, the student that the Master praises exercises restraint in that he doesn’t eat or dress especially well. However, he demonstrates his reverence for the rites by making an effort to dress well while performing them. He also shows his dedication to the collective by putting more effort into creating canals—sustainable water access for the community—than he does to beautifying his own home.
Themes
