Analysis Of Ideal Features Of Life In Utopia By Thomas More
Utopia is a work of fiction written by Thomas More. More’s article is a frame narrative mainly addressing a fictional island society and its political, social, and religious customs. “Most of the author’s description of Utopia is about life in monasteries”. In this paper, I want to select two features of life in More’s fictitious land and explain why they are ideal and why they were preferable to life in the 16th -17th century Europe. Additionally, I intend to compare and contrast between Utopian and European life of the time.
Utopia is a communal society where everyone made their own clothes and learned how to trade. They rose early and work for six hours a day and they were eating together in the evening. The two features of life in this land are peaceful government and equality for citizens. The government provided the safety and welfare of everyone in society, allowing people to live peacefully without hesitation and fear. Peace was ideal for people to live in harmony with one another. And given that this land practiced communism, individual members worked together and shared their produce. Unity created a bond of friend and brotherhood as people could look after one another. The peaceful government was preferable to life in the 16th- 17th century because it was the best that could allow countries to expand economically, politically, and socially. During this time, protestants campaigned and preached pacifism; forbidding violence. Its peace allowed for rapid economic expansion as people focused on development. Economic expansion played a key role in many transformations including political, cultural, and social development.
Utopians enjoyed equality and liberty, giving them real opportunities that helped most of the people to conquer poverty. The income gap between most of the people was very small. Utopians focused on equality in various areas such as government, economic growth and development, and administration of justice. With equality in economics, the members enjoyed income equality, allowing people to develop. “Citizens enjoyed equal rights and achieved equal protection from the government as well as equality in the administration of justice” (Sutton, 2016). Utopia is a hypothesis of an ideal commonwealth, denouncing inequalities. Equality entails ensuring that everybody is allowed to make most of their lives and talents. This feature was preferred to life in the 16th and 17th centuries because it was the only way that could allow everybody to get changed from hardships including poverty. Also, it was believed that when humans are treated fairly and equally, they can contribute socially and economically to the community, thus, promoting growth and prosperity.
Life is more idealistic in Utopia is idealistic while European life is less idealistic. In European society, there is greed for wealth leading people into thefts. Theft is punishable by death but people are not avoiding it. “Besides, there is a high poverty level in Europe, with wealth being accumulated by a few individuals”. Consequently, there is a huge income gap between the richest and poorest people in this region. But in Utopia, the income gap is small and even though this kind of region is impossible to obtain, it is an idea of the perfect society.
In conclusion, Utopia is an imaginary society with desirable qualities for its citizens. A society with a peaceful government and equality among its citizens is the best for growth and development. This kind of society is what we admire to have today but we can’t achieve it because of prevalent greediness among government authorities and ordinary citizens.
