The Rights of the Individual and Women Lost in Thomas More’s Utopia

Voltaire's Candide is a short satirical novel based on the life, adventures, and ultimate enlightenment of the title character Candide. The novel was subtitled ironically, The Optimist, in reference to a type of philosophy prevalent in Voltaire's day, which the author found repellant. Candide is his answer to optimism as a philosophy. Likewise, Samuel Johnson's Rasselas presents a worldview (according to the philosopher Imlac) that at times appears to be somewhat stilted. Not as cynical or satirical as Candide, however, the hero Rasselas learns lessons about life that to a certain extent elude Voltaire's hero. This paper will show how Johnson's Rasselas learns to be satisfied with pursuing his vocation as prince and "administer [of] justice" (Johnson 197), while Voltaire's Candide learns that man is essentially doomed to suffer from his own folly and ignorance in the ironically dubbed "best of all possible worlds" (Voltaire 14).

“Ideas shape the course of history”- John Maynard Keynes, Economist. History has a way of always changing things. We get these ideas of how to the make the world better, how to make a country better, how a make a city better. All of these ideas of what would make the perfect place to be in. We all envision a perfect place for us to live in. We envision what the government would look like, how the government would look like. But it is not just the government we envision our own perfect way. Economic structures, religious beliefs, social customs, and legal systems, we envision these things to be perfect, according to our own wants and desires. In Sir Thomas More’s Utopia that is exactly is happening. Utopia is defined as an imagined place or

The so-called Utopia – the quasi-perfect society – flourishes in Margaret Cavendish’s “The Description of a New World, Called a Blazing World” and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. While the former is a dreamlike account of fantasy rule and the latter a pseudo-realistic travelogue, both works paint a picture of worlds that are not so perfect after all. These imperfections glitter like false gemstones in the paths of these Utopians’ religious beliefs, political systems, and philosophical viewpoints.

Utopia is a classic frame narrative. How does More use frames and point of view to protect himself from the scrutiny of the king?

The concept of utopia is one which has many differing connotations and is therefore also one which cannot be confined to one interpretation alone. The term is commonly used to represent a community or society that, in theory, possesses highly desirable or near-‘perfect’ qualities; however, these encompassing ideals, which arguably place emphasis on egalitarian principles of equality, are implemented in a number of ways and are subsequently based on varying ideologies, thus insisting on varying views of morality. The word itself, which was first coined by Sir Thomas More in the early sixteenth century and used to describe a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean, was taken from the Greek οὐ (‘not’) and τόπος (‘place’), literally translating

The Utopians live in a society that is free from the grips of money and hoarding, one that is as close to perfect as one can feasibly imagine. It is a world where people get along together in harmony, with “nothing private anywhere” (More 231). The only have gardening competitions, and even their gardens are not permanent, dying with each passing year. They “change houses by lot” every ten years to keep people from hoarding earthly goods, and by doing this create a society where not only does everyone contribute, and everyone also communicates and relates to those around them (More 231). This happens in large part, according to More, because of “communal living and their moneyless economy” (More 269). Through this revolutionary and ideal living, they create a place where there is no bribery because there is no money, with

Although comparing one society to another does not require them to be different in government or human behavior, it does necessarily weight one’s faults against its victories to render it better or worse than the other. This comparative structure, found between Thomas More’s two books of Utopia, poses the country of Utopia opposite the broader communities of world civilization. Despite the comparison of Utopia as distinct from and morally better than widespread society, in truth Utopia is, at best, an extension.

The "Middle" Ages were followed by the Renaissance, a time in which art and literature flourished. Thomas More, the first English humanist of the Renaissance, was born in London during this period. More's style is simple because of its colloquial language but a deeper look into his irony hints at deep dissatisfaction with the current thought and desire for change. "Utopia" (which in Greek means "nowhere") is the name of More's fictional island of perfected society. Thomas More's "Utopia" was the first literary work in which the ideas of Communism appeared and was highly esteemed by all the humanists of Europe in More's time. More uses the main character, Hythlodaeus, as a fictional front to express his own feelings he may have feared to

In his book Utopia, Thomas More examines a society that seems to be the ideal living situation for human beings. The main thesis of Utopia is his solution to many of the problems that are being faced in English society in the early 16th century.

Thomas Mores Utopia has more of a community sense. People are forced to believe that the purpose for working is for the good of the public. No matter what a persons status or rank is, they must learn the basics of Agriculture during their childhood. As mentioned by Thomas More, “Every year of this family come back to town after

     Socialist ideals have recurred throughout the history of literature; from Plato to Marx the elusive goal of a perfect state has occupied some of the best minds in political thought manifesting itself in literature. In the midst of this historic tradition is the Utopia of More, a work which links the utopias of the ancient with the utopias of the modern. Hythloday's fantasy island draws heavily on the Greek Republic and yet it influenced the revolutionary world of Marx. What values do the Utopians hold which are in common with other socialist utopian values, and which ideals of theirs are unique?

Throughout the ages, man has come to idealize a word that is most commonly related to ‘heavenly’ or ‘perfect’ without actually picking up the book and realizing for themselves that there is no such thing. A Utopian society could never exist because man is made to want, to desire success. Man is competitive by nature and would never be happy in a society where everyone is equal and there is no chance of advancement. Sir Thomas More dreamt of a land that was much like England but could never surpass time. He opened the eyes of a nation and made its people desire something new. Views were significantly changed and the world would never be the same. Sir Thomas More inspired dramatic changes in religion, community life and even paved

Everyone has an individual idea of what society should be like and how the people within it should function. The world is not a perfect place, leaving people often desiring for something better. Utopia by Thomas More gives a glimpse at a society that has achieved this notion of a fluid and cohesive environment. Utopia describes a society in which money is obsolete and everyone makes the necessary contributions in order for the community to function and survive. A moneyless society is completely nonexistent in the world today.

In Thomas More’s Utopia, the elimination of property and money has all citizens working for the commonwealth. It is “where every man has a right to everything. They all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything. For among them there is no unequal distribution so that no man is poor, none in necessity and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich” (More 81). More’s Utopia also encourages a balance of power within society. It is where an individual, in a position of power, is not “as idle as drones, that subsist on other men’s labor” (More 7) It is where that individual gives “more regard to the riches of his country than to his wealth” (More 21).

Thomas More’s Utopia is a work of ambiguous dualities that forces the reader to question More’s real view on the concept of a utopian society. However, evidence throughout the novel suggests that More did intend Utopia to be the “best state of the commonwealth.” The detailed description of Utopia acts as Mores mode of expressing his humanistic views, commenting on the fundamentals of human nature and the importance of reason and natural law while gracefully combining the two seemingly conflicting ideals of communism and liberalism.