Thomas More's Utopia
Thomas More's Utopia
Thomas More's use of dialogue in "Utopia" is not only practical but masterly laid out as well. The text itself is divided into two parts. The first , called "Book One", describes the English society of the fifteenth century with such perfection that it shows many complex sides of the interpretted structure with such clarity and form that the reader is given the freedom for interpretation as well. This flexibility clearly illustrates
More's request for discussion and point of view from this reader. In one concise, artistic paragraph, More clearly illustrates his proposition of the problems people possess within a capitalist society and the fault of the structure itself; clearly showing More's point of view for "Book One". If More attempted to get anything across to the people of England it was this:
Take a barren year of failed harvests, when many thousands of men have been carried off by hunger. If at the end of the famine the barns of the rich were searched. I dare say positively enough grain would be found in them to have saved the lives of all those who died from starvation and disease, if it had been divided equally among them. Nobody really need have suffered from a bad harvest at all. So easily might men get the necessities of life if that cursed money, which is supposed to provide access to them, were not in fact the chief barrier to our getting what we need to live. Even the rich, I'm sure, understand this. They must know that it's better to have enough of what we really need than an abundance of superfluities, much better to escape from our many present troubles than to be burdened with great masses of wealth. And in fact I have no doubt that every man's perception of where his true interest lies, along with with the authority of Christ our Saviour..... would long ago have brought the whole world to adopt Utopian laws, if it were not for one single monster, the prime plague and begetter of all others---I mean pride.
Thomas More's use of dialogue in "Utopia" is not only practical but masterly laid out as well. The text itself is divided into two parts. The first , called "Book One", describes the English society of the fifteenth century with such perfection that it shows many complex sides of the interpretted structure with such clarity and form that the reader is given the freedom for interpretation as well. This flexibility clearly illustrates
More's request for discussion and point of view from this reader. In one concise, artistic paragraph, More clearly illustrates his proposition of the problems people possess within a capitalist society and the fault of the structure itself; clearly showing More's point of view for "Book One". If More attempted to get anything across to the people of England it was this:
Take a barren year of failed harvests, when many thousands of men have been carried off by hunger. If at the end of the famine the barns of the rich were searched. I dare say positively enough grain would be found in them to have saved the lives of all those who died from starvation and disease, if it had been divided equally among them. Nobody really need have suffered from a bad harvest at all. So easily might men get the necessities of life if that cursed money, which is supposed to provide access to them, were not in fact the chief barrier to our getting what we need to live. Even the rich, I'm sure, understand this. They must know that it's better to have enough of what we really need than an abundance of superfluities, much better to escape from our many present troubles than to be burdened with great masses of wealth. And in fact I have no doubt that every man's perception of where his true interest lies, along with with the authority of Christ our Saviour..... would long ago have brought the whole world to adopt Utopian laws, if it were not for one single monster, the prime plague and begetter of all others---I mean pride.