Utopia Essay Questions

What is a frame narrative and why do you think Utopia was written as one?

A frame narrative is a text, usually a work of fiction, that operates on two narrative levels. They usually involve a character in a primary setting who tells an elaborate story about a secondary setting or experience. Utopia is classified as a frame narrative because the primary setting (More's garden in Antwerp) contains the story of the secondary setting (Hythloday's description of Utopia). This structure is significant because it allows More to create some distance between himself and Hythloday so that he is not perceived as endorsing Hythloday's Utopia entirely, but is instead an innocent interlocutor. This would have been an important role for More to occupy as an advisor to the king.

Why is it significant that the central conversation of the text occurs in a garden?

When More, Giles, and Hythloday all meet and decide to retire somewhere more private for a conversation, they retreat to More's garden before beginning their discussion. This is a significant setting because gardens had a literary precedent as a common setting for philosophical discourse and debate. In classical literature, gardens – with their privacy, vibrancy, and generally quiet climates – became sites for important intellectual talks. As such, when the men enter the garden, the reader is subtly informed that what is to follow is not just an entertaining story but a philosophical meditation on society, human nature, and power.

What is the narrator's perception of Raphael Hythloday?

Initially, More describes Hythloday as the weary traveler, a trope that began in ancient Greek and Roman literature. The weary traveler is a person (usually a man) whose physical appearance reflects his inner state of change and that he has experienced over the course of his exploration (such as Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey). As Hythloday begins describing his experience with Utopia, More develops a somewhat skeptical perception of his interlocutor, wondering frequently if what Hythloday sees as inarguably "perfect" is really the case. The interplay between Hythloday and More as a narrator helps craft the text's largely ambiguous tone.

What are some elements of Utopia that might lead one to question its ideal state?

The portrait Hythloday provides of Utopia is certainly a seductive one: a society that operates with no poverty, no hierarchies, and no social unrest. Hythloday attributes these qualities to Utopia's elimination of individual pride, which he sees as the source of all evil in the world. However, there are subtle details about Utopia that might lead readers to question is idyllic nature. Hierarchy, for example, is not entirely extinct, as Hythloday reports. Families and social gatherings are still often organized according to a hierarchical structure, and Hythloday even explains that the Utopians have slaves (prisoners of war). Moreover, Hythloday himself is often a hypocritical interlocutor, as he argues for the elimination of prideful behavior at the same time he monopolizes the conversation among the three men and refuses to acknowledge contradicting opinions.

How has Utopia influenced western literature over the last five centuries?

Thomas More is credited with the invention of the word "utopia," which is a Latin term that literally translates to "no place." After he wrote this text, the word became part of English vernacular, denoting a society that was perfect in every way. The text also inspired other utopian texts like Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World. Finally, a more recent development from utopian literature has been its opposite, dystopian literature, in which an allegedly prosperous society is actually masking large amounts of suffering and injustice on an individual level.