Date Written: 9/22/2021
Question: Why does More present the traveler as a sensible reformer early in Book I, but not later?
Thomas More wrote a very interesting book called “Utopia.” In this book there is a character that has traveled the world and seen it all. This traveler named Raphael Hythloday criticizes European society of the time. Hythloday claims that in his travels he has found much better societies. He claims that he stumbled upon Utopia where everyone is content and well fed. He then uses Utopia to criticize European society.
More’s Critique of the Justice System
His first critique was that in European society they should not give the death penalty for petty theft. Which they did. Based on his experiences in Utopia he recommends restitution as the penalty for theft. He argues that if the punishment for theft and murder are the same people will be more inclined to murder the people they were stealing from. In his book he states “For if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed, since if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery.” This argument is logical. But this is only the beginning. His arguments only get worse from here.
More’s Critique of the Private Property System
Another critique he had was of the private property system. He blamed all the evils in the world on private property. In the book he states. “I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant: indeed if I should either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his commonwealth, or as the Utopians practice in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on property, there being no such thing among them, that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them;…”
He claimed that the Utopians had no private property and they are the best of the best when it comes to society, so why should we keep the evil of private property? He goes on to explain that in Utopia everyone is forced to work in all professions and the size of your family is governed. This sounds a lot like awful communism to me.
This raises the question: Why did More portray the traveler as a sensible reformer in the beginning, but not later? Well, I think he changed the traveler’s arguments because this book was meant to be a literary joke. The last name of the traveler which is Hythloday literally means expert of nonsense in Greek. This book was not meant to be taken seriously. Just as the characters last name means this book is full of nonsense.
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