Class Satire in More’s Utopia
The Utopian people are poster children for the socialist way of life. From birth, Utopians are taught not to value material wealth, but to recognize the natural value of ores and metals that in other countries would be precious (727). Prideful children are given diamonds and rubies (726), casting an observational quip about the maturity of money-grubbers that could have made Marx and Freud laugh in understanding. When Utopian children come of age, they realize to cherish metals and ore for their aesthetic beauty is not something to be proud of (726). Pride instead comes from accomplishment. Though there is a patriarchal overtone in Utopian society demanding women be put to less demanding duties, More was revisionist enough to imagine a society in which women are just as capable as men, are educated equally, and are thought to be human beings. He takes an atypical route, mentioning that, contrary to tradition, women are as educated as men. Both sexes “flock to hear the lectures” (718). By the education of women alone More shows us the great lengths he has gone to ensure that the island of Utopia is a paradise of equality. The idea of work also shows this sense of equality; every resident is required to work six hours per day. Each person works his or her share, and no one works less. Karl Kautsky points out More’s reasons are “to free the citizens of his commonwealth as much as possible from physicallabour, in order to procure them leisure for intellectual and social activity” (265). The Utopians are not completely conformists, however. More takes into account an individual’s free will and passions by allowing his fictional people to branch off on their own to pursue individual interests. Above all the people living in Utopia are happy; they live in a time and place in which war has no purpose. Living in isolation, cut off from any tension from the outside world, Utopians achieve what so many societies, past and present, aspire to- true harmony.
True harmony is boring. Dissention and conflict, though painful, has a tendency to lift a people from stagnation and to greater heights. While More’s surface text displays his Utopian society as a perfect world, his subtext serves as a reminder that societal perfection is an improbable goal. H. W. Donner argues Kautsky’s interpretation of More as a pro-communist advocate before his time: “More’s arguments are chiefly two. One is that no improvement would result if one man’s goods were taken away from him and given to other people” (269). More implies that a world, no matter how isolated, is ultimately isolated from something beyond itself. Utopians trade and continue making contact with the outside world, and are prone to feel sorry for other nations for not being as advanced in thought, praising “a commonwealth whose institutions are far removed from follies” (727). Utopia, in theory, is a peaceful, love-thy-neighbor city; however the people regretfully prepare for war with the outside world if a strenuous situation escalates beyond their ability to contain it. While equality is shown to be appealing, nothing about the concept allows the people abiding by it to accomplish more than his or her neighbor. Yet the very nature of individuality, More projects, is stricken with variables that immediately contradict the perfection Utopia supposedly personifies. Every man works in the field. Every man does not, however, paint on canvas, make shoes, and create music. Each specialty of the individual carries with it an intangible level of difficulty, too different to gauge an exact reading as to which craft is actually more difficult to maintain. Also, More subtly suggests that negative emotions give way to positive results, therefore praising the potential of imperfection. When children come of age and drop the valuing of precious metals and ore, it is not a willingness to change nor an attempt to improve oneself; rather, the driving force of the transition is shame. The logic of this shame is a direct result of the communal values of Utopia’s society, which dictates every facet of the lives of the Utopians. Alice Morgan writes about the use of value, indicating the Utopians preferred a natural and practical perspective: “To accord an item a value other than use value, as in the case of elegant clothes, is to substitute an imaginary value for a true one.” The values of the Utopians are uniform; rather than value objects of desire, the people focus more on need. However, More himself contradicts the practicality of his world by including an acceptance of pleasure: “[The Utopians] are right in including man’s natural inclinations” (730). Furthermore, the Utopians employ slaves to do the most laborious tasks. Slaves in the Utopian world are either captured enemy soldiers or foreigners sentenced to death (736). The very notion that Utopian society even condones subjugation of other human beings would be enough to debunk a single-class system, as a group of citizens, no matter the equality among their community, are fundamentally wrong in believing their island to be an Eden when an entire lower-class group of slaves are present. More uses these counterpoints to dissuade the notion that human beings can obtain perfection, and hints that only by embracing flaws and differences does humankind offer its best qualities and achievements.
If Utopia in itself were only a commentary on the inner struggle to achieve societal perfection, More would have bored himself into blissful slumber while writing it. Instead, he puts enough satire into his project to give the impression he is acting out the role of Socrates; he stands back and asks questions until the reader finds answers for themselves. His sense of humor acts as a defensive mechanism; he uses it not only to protect himself and his work from scrutiny, but also to soften the radical nature of the extremes projected. This allows the reader to more easily accept, if not agree with, the perspectives More writes. By using his sense of humor in this way, More assures his audience the ideas expressed are in no way to be taken with a heavy conscience. More’s humor comes in how he compares and contrasts these two communal viewpoints, and how points of interest mirror the relationship between Utopia and England. Utopia is a land of contradiction, England a country of dissention. The contradictions between the perfect societal world and the unavoidable imperfections of the possible illusionary world are akin to England’s, and to another degree, all human’s struggle to obtain a true-to-life ideally perfect communal society. Therefore by remaining contradictory More is able to support and dismiss both sides at once, enabling the reader to decide whether or not communist or socialist values are worth pursuing, or whether the point is really the pursuit
