How Does More Respond To Thomas More's Utopia?

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) is a text of universality in which has fascinated and influenced countless writers. It is a novel, in which its primary motif and desire is to attack the ills of society and to point direction for the amelioration of humanity. It is a text of value in which it communicates, educates and criticizes Thomas More’s opinions and concerns as a political satire. It is the novels use of Utopic/Dystopic conventions, intermingling of fact and fiction and comparison, which heightens the believability of Utopia, in that it arises on the emphasis of his concerns on the concept of the rich vs. poor, and religious tolerance. More’s Utopia is a response to a specific historical time, which reflects on the many social, political …show more content…
Thomas More emphasises and enunciates this concern, through the equality of justice and the uniformity of his Utopian Society and the contrast between the corrupt and ideal world. The homogeneity of the houses and the law acts as a polemic to dispute against the injustices of the rich who did nothing productive yet lived in luxury, while the poor were left in poverty and hard labour, essentially, it was an attack to the nobles of his time. Thomas More’s Utopian society was characterized to be the ideal world, a place of uniformity where “when you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen them all” Thomas More contrasts between the corrupt (contextual time) and the ideal (Utopia) society to accentuate on the notion of the inequality between the rich and the poor. An example of this is through the description of the identical houses; Thomas More describes the house through the use of Burlesque to reflect on the situation of England at the time, “Each house has a front door leading into the street, and a back door into the garden. In both cases they’re double swing doors, which open at a touch, and close automatically behind you. So anyone can go in and out – for there’s no such thing as private property.” The humorous satire alludes to the private properties in England, which allowed for rich …show more content…
In Utopia, justice for ones belief is achieved. The Utopian society believes in one Supreme Being who in which "is also the great Essence to whose glory and majesty all honors are ascribed by the consent of all nations." and tolerates all religions including their doctrine and ceremonies. Thomas More applies this Religion to the Utopian society to stipulate to the circumstances faced in England. The point difference between the two Religions was that the Christian denomination did not allow liberality and insisted on the principle belief of one church and one authoritative doctrine; it was a generation where other religions were persecuted. Paradoxically, Thomas More preached Religious toleration in Utopia and yet methodically persecuted Protestants, he applied this religion because he later understood that religious toleration leads to peace unlike the Dystopic society of England where it was static and resisted change in religion which lead to chaos. Thomas More uses antithesis of the two different societies; peace vs. chaos/good vs. evil to portray that religious toleration is needed. Furthermore, Raphael preaches using aphorism that “the most ancient principles of their constitution is religious toleration” further justifying his concerns, this leads to verisimilitude of the Utopian society as audience are swayed by its truth. Under the rule