Utopia

OZAN AKÇA 1111310054

1-TITLE: UTOPIA

2-AUTHOR: SIR THOMAS MORE

3-DATE OF PUBLICATION: April 2011

4-NUMBER OF PAGES: 176

5-GENRE: Science Fiction

6- THEME: Common welfare vs. private interest

7-SETTING: Antwerp

8-PLOT: On a diplomatic trip to Brussels, "More" takes a side trip to the seaport of Antwerp where he falls into conversation with Peter Giles and Giles' acquaintance, Raphael Hythloday, who sailed with Amerigo Vespucci. The men go to "More"'s house where, in the garden, Raphael tells them of the history, customs and culture of the Utopians

9-CHARACTERS

Sir Thomas More: In service to King Henry VIII of England, he travels to Antwerp where he meets Peter Giles and Raphael Hythloday. More is a fictional character sharing the same name as Utopia's author, Sir Thomas More. However, More the fictional character should not be assumed to be a transparent mouthpiece of the opinions of the author. For the purpose of this review, in the Summary and specific sections' analyses, the name More will be used only in reference to the fictional character, while Thomas More will identifyUtopia's author.

PETER GILES: Friend of More and acquaintance of Raphael Hythloday. Once again, Peter Giles is an actual historical figure, a friend and intellectual companion of Sir Thomas More. Peter Giles, in fact, helped More to getUtopia published. The fictional Giles shares nearly all of his biographical history with the real Peter Giles, but like the fictional More, should be understood to be a fictional character

RAPHAEL HYTLODAY: A philosopher and world traveler, he lived for five years on the island of Utopia before returning to Europe to spread the word about the Utopian's ideal society. Hythloday's last name, in Greek, means "talker of nonsense," a clue from Sir Thomas More to his reader that the island of Utopia is a fiction.

UTOPUS: The ancient conqueror who built the Utopian state. 1760 years before Hythloday's visit to Utopia, Utopus conquered the brutish people and separated the area into its own island by cutting through the narrow isthmus that connected Utopia to the mainland. Most of the laws, institutions, and values passed down by Utopus remained in place 1760 years later, when Raphael visited

UTOPIA-SUMMARY

Utopia: Utopia (from the Greek οὐ-τόποı, no-where) is a word coined by Thomas
More, which describes an ideal commonwealth that he believed to be impossible to exist, at least in his own time. Since this is a fairly modern word, it has acquired, over its five hundred years of existence, different nuances of meaning that should be made clear.
Utopia means perfect society, and this is what Raphael is describing in this book. The perfect country that he visited. There is no greed, selfishness, brutality, and very little crime. Furthermore, nobody is unhappy.Utopia consists of two parts and Thomas More tells about the flawless commonwealth in the second part so he doesn’t tell about it in the first part and he prefers telling another topics.

Book I

While Thomas More is travelling in the Low Countries, he sees his friend, Peter Giles. Giles introduces him an adventurous person who is one of his friends, Raphael Hythloday.

The protoganist character of Utopia is Raphael Hythloday. He is an adventurer captain and goes around and sees everywhere. When he is travelling around with his swab they misses their way and find themselves in Utopia. His life in Utopia takes 5 years and he sees utopian’s living. After going back to Europe,he starts to tell about utopian’s perfect life. And then our story begins with this.

Raphael uses this story to tell about the goverment system and tries to explain how Europeans rule the countries and what they do. He shows that the commonwealth always desires to be right and the king too. King wants his counselors to agree with his own beliefs even they are bad. Raphael friends ask him to be counselor of the king because he thinks his beliefs and decision would have an effective role in the realm but Raphaels thinks and says whatever he does for the king, it wont be helpful for people because the king is always right and every steps of people do will be benefits of the king. Then this shows (that) the king is always rich and has the power. So people just have to work for him. People just live for the king and the king rules them. So Raphael shows us the differences between European countries and Utopian’s world view. Thomas More also wants to point out that poverty occurs because of nobility and they just sponge on the public.

Book II

GEOGRAPHY

Biggest area of the utopian’s island is two hundred miles in the middles. The remove never narrows much except for two headland. These two headland give a moon shape to the island. The center of the crescent is a gulf and wind never blows there so the waves of the see doesnt affect there. This gulf is the only place for ships to stay there safely but the entrance of the gulf is quite dangerous. Because one side of gulf is shoal and the other side is rocky. There is a rock in the middle and when the water goes over it, it doesnt pose danger for people so people build a tower on it. One post always stays in the tower and watches sides. The other rocks stand under the water so they are so dangerous for shippings because of that without a guide none is able to enter there. There are lighthouses around the gulf and utopians use them. When they change places of lighthouses enemy sides hit rocks and sink there immediately. With the geographical position utopians have the power. In the island there are fifty-four cities which are really big and magnificent. Each city has the same language, traditions, corparations and the rules. All cities are too far from each other and it is not possible to walk one to other in a day. Each city has a land for farming nearly ten miles and people supply their needs from there. There is no land owner in utopia so people work there as if they are their own lands. There are ranch-houses near lands and fourty people go there to work from cities. No private life for utopians and people always take what they need never more than they have.

CAPITAL

If you knows one place in utopia, it shows that you know all. Because out of the differences of geographical positions, they are all same. In each year, one of representer of each cities goes to Amaurot which is capital of utopia. There is a river Anydra in Amaurot and people build their houses around it. Each house has two doors an done opens to garden and the other opens to street. These two doors are opened easily by people and closed by themselves. Not to having a private life, they never lock their doors and people go in which houses they want without permission. People change their houses within a decade so it shows that there is no private life. Utopians also care and like their gardens and grow grapes, medical herbs and flowers. They like having competitions and at the end they choose who has the most beautiful one. In the beginning people think that King Utopus planned their cities. Infact he let next generation to create their life as they wish.

TRAVEL AND FOREIGN COMMERCE

People can visit their relatives with the permission of the authority who is syphogrant or tranibor as they wish but they should carry the permission letter with them. On the other hand person who doesnt has the letter, is accepted as a fugitive. If they do that second time, authority make them slaves. When people go another city to visit, they should help people for their works. So as far as we see,they are not free to go around aimlessly in utopia and this shows that people can not kill time in pub or in brothel. They never let confidential communications and have to say it in sight. With doing this they think that they will be able to be more wealthy. None has to beg or none has to steal something from the others because they share their goods equally. There representer of every cities go to Amaurot and consider about the cities needs. So they decide which city is poor and which city is wealty. At the end of the meeting they trade good city by city considering their needs. If they have extra harvest, they send them to other countries without regarding any money or goods. Utopians always trade with other countries for along time and with trading they are becoming so wealthy more than we imagine. While they are trading their goods with other countries, they never cares money and never force people to pay as soon as possible they can because for utopians money means nothing. In utopia money never talks because they all have what they need and they are able to take their poverties without paying any charge. They just use money to rent soldiers for wars because they dont like risking their public.

GOLD AND SILVER

Gold and silver means nothing for utopians because they all have what they need so gold and silver are not valuable for them. First of all utopian people never use money for themselves. For example; gold and silver are not valuable as iron because people can not live without iron but they can live without gold and silver. They never keep gold and silver behind closed doors. When they find gemstones, they give them to children as a gift and children like wearing and playing with them. Solely when they grow up, they realize that all gemstones are toys for children and then they dont play with them anymore. When Raphael is in Amaurot, he sees ambassadors are coming from their countries and they all have jewels on their clothes. They all walk around Utopia like nobels and want to show off their jewels to public. However they have no idea about the public, the thing they dont know is that utopians never care jewels and they just give them to children as a gift or a toy. When children see them, all of them ridicule and point at that people to their mothers. Then their mothers say them to be quite and whisperingly speak for them as clowns of the kings. As we have seen, people are in utopia dont need such things in their life and they all have pure lifestyle without obeying anything.

SLAVES

Utopian people just force people to be a slave who fight against them. On the other hand they dont have such things. If slaves come from an another country, they are not accepted as slaves and becomes free there. Utopian people rough their slaves much more than other slaves who come from an another countries. And sometimes some slaves want to go to utopia and go on their life as a slave there. They do this because utopians conditions are not strict as they have. Utopian people love these slaves more than their people and consider them equal to their ones. If a slave wants to leave from utopia, they will be free to go where they want.

MARRIAGE

Before girls and boys are of age, they are not able to marry. Until girls become at the age of 18 and the boy become at the age of 22, they are not able to marry. If they have a realition out of marriage, they will be punissed seriously. And also if the prince dont forgive them, they couldnt marry along their life. When people are choosing their couples, they have a funny tradition like seeing each other being naked. They prefer doing this not to being regretful later on. Their marriage run until the couples die. If one deceive another, they will be free to divorce. On the other hand it is not possible to divorce. And also if a married couple doesnt get on well each other and have a one to marry, they could divorced each other. They care getting one marriage rather than having more.Fornicating is forbidden in utopia and if one is arrested they will be punished as a slave.

SENSE OF BATTLE

Utopian people dont like fighting each other and they dont want to have a fight because they think that fighting each other is only for animals not for humans. If they dont have warrants, they wont prefer to fight. For example when enemy sides damage to utopians friends, they always fight to protect them until they destroy all of them. They always care themselves and they dont want to fight so they rent assassins who are really merciless and just care for money even their enemies belong to their family, they never regard and kill them. They also choose military volunteers and send them to other countries to fight and none force them to go, they are free to take a decision by themselves. They try to take every precaution not to joining the war. They find freelances as far as they can and they do that to end the war. They never show their all power to enemies and go on slowly. They never give up to fight and risk their life if it is essential. They are conscious of having all skills of a soldier so they dont afraid of any enemies of them. they are also good at set a snare also find out the enemies ones. They dont think to leave the war even they are defeated by their enemies. If they really want to withdraw, they would not proclaim that. When they declare ceasefire, they never put out that ceasefire. And also when they win the war, they leave money to public purse. On the other hand money means nothing. Consequently, they are fearless people and do everthing for their future and for their friends in the wars.

RELIGION

There are many religions in utopia which are unpleasant. Some worships to moon, to sun, to a planet or even a person. However most of utopian people believe one god and this god has the authority whole around the world and the names of god is Mithra.They never seperate wisdom or religion each other. They dont believe stars or fortune. Considering to them everthing starts with nature. There is nothing to be solved by wisdom in nature. The main thing for them is thinking and living for their knowledge. Noone is blamed because of his / her religion and everbody can stand for their religion. Religious functionaries dont only pray for people but they are also responsible for to dry bogs. Although there are many people who serve and standing for an aimless religion in Europe, there are only thirteen monk and a pontiff in utopia. Monks are free to marry. They are not able to say anything about the state affairs. Utopian people dont sacrifice animals in rituals. They all pray in temples. They dont afraid of death because of knowing the survival of souls. The death person’s funiral is taken with carols. Most of them believe after death and they think the death person will be happy there. So they dont cry for a death people. If a group of people believe an another religion, they would make their rituals in a private house. General rituals are not prepared to humiliate to small rituals. When people go to churches, they all wear white clothes on them except for monk because he wears colored ones. While they are praying , they dont forget to accept god is the creater of earth and thanks to god for giving them the beauties of earthly goods. Consequently for utopian people there is no obligation in religions and people are free to pray in their homes not only in temples.

CONCLUSION

In utopia, there is no pain and injustices and people can live liberally and equally but for the democrat in there. Also there are no obligations, rules or dictator systems of king or power of noble people. Buying tasks with money is not possible in utopia. There are not also headmen who love fighting or having dogmas of religion to people. Shortly Utopia is a place of the realm of the imaginary and happiness land for people. Consequently there is a system of Thomas More’s plan in the island of utopia because utopia is settled down an island. In this world there is a dream of justice,peace, a democratic system and an understanding of living together. People know that the private life is the source of every evils and thus they dont have private lives. In the island none has private lives and none cares money because money never talks there. When people are harvesting, they all save what they have in a place and use them for dark days. It shows that there is a pure democratic system in Utopia.