Sir Thomas More’s Utopia

Knights Who Say Ni:Will RabonChris WrightTJ BurrellErika Hubbard

What does Utopia mean?

● Sir Thomas More was the first to coin the word

● Greek translation- “no place”

● Sounds like “good place” in Greek

SATIRE

“the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's ignorance, particularly in the context of politics and other recent topical issues.”

*Utopia is indirectly criticizing Europe’s political corruption and religious hypocrisy of that time. More depicts an alternative where he is able to expose all of the absurdities and crookedness of his world.

Plot

● Conflict: ○ Zealous Christians were exiled

● Protestant Reformation:○ Christians were persecuted

○ Sir Thomas More imagined a world that embodied religious

tolerance

○ Making fun of Europe’s ignorance

The Narrator● Sir Thomas More was the first person narrator in the first book,

but in the second he uses one of his developed characters, Raphael Hythloday as the first person narrator

● Raphael○ Archangel, brings good news

○ Meaning “God Heals”

● Hythloday ○ “expert of nonsense”

● Also, the original text was written in Latin - the language of the educated people. This text wasn’t written for the average man.

Setting

● Peaceful Island filled with cities all with different religious differences ○ completely enclosed with water, away from corruption and greed

● Based off of Thomas More’s interpretation of Europe at the time

Character Analysis

● The narrator walks the reader through Utopia.

● He touches on multiple characters and their community roles

● However, there was not much development-at least in the chapter we chose-

List of Characters

● King Utopus-In a perfect community, there should be no king

● Priest-Women were allowed to be priests (not even a thought at the time Utopia was written), The priests had the most desirable wives (priests were not supposed to marry)

● Rich-Evil men, they made the laws (What happened to the idea of a “good place”?)

● Poor-In Utopia, there shouldn’t be a rich or a poor group. There should be uniformity/equality.

Symbols wrapped around satire

● Religion○ Tolerance

○ No uniformity

○ Personal Beliefs

● Social Classes○ Priesthood

○ Social Gaps, rich vs poor

○ Built-in Hierarchy

● The Law

http://dadahyena.deviantart.com/art/Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail-print-367832089

Here is an example of a more modern satire, and it follows along with the theme of european satirical works.

Thanks...and GO TIGERS!