WORLD LITERATURE / UTOPIA BOOK II BY THOMAS MORE

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 Book II More 's Utopia

More 's struggle is against an encroaching capitalism in 16th century England . He envisions a new society based on uniformity and equality with a strong stress on the former . The very fact that the 52 towns all have the same language , laws , customs and institutions ' shows how more views equality as uniformity , how one cannot exist without the other . Even the homes are allocated on a rotating basis , to eliminate the social cleavages found in ornate or overly pretentious homes of the

modern upper classes . The same might be said of clothes , which are plain and uninteresting by design (More , 70 , 72 , 75

Utopia is an agrarian society , though , like England , has substantial water ports for trade . The agrarian life is not romanticized , but is accomplished on a rotating basis , so that no individual would become worn out from such labor (More , 71 . Apparently , unlike many utopian , More believes agriculture is drudgery and all efforts to spread the labor within that particular occupation are very important here

More is far from an anarchist , and Utopia is a highly regimented and politicized community . All is political , and the economic elements of Utopia re subsumed into the political (see below . The constitution is very explicitly drawn out and tedious . At the local level , every thirty households elects a Steward , and each town should have 200 of these officers , and it is these officers that elect a Mayor . The Mayor is himself...