Sir Thomas More’s titular nation of Utopia has come to colloquially express a society free of conflict. A “Utopia” is that place where there are (virtually or literally) no poor, no class struggles, no crimes, etc. More’s Utopia, as described through the recollection of the landless traveler/philosopher Raphael Hythloday, achieves these ends primarily through its commonplace “laws,” i.e., its distributed model of property. Jonathan Swift’s scathing satire “A Modest Proposal…” sardonically depicts a society where the solution to poverty and to the struggle of the poor lies in the resale and culinary value of the poor’s children, an end which will satisfy the starving children for the short time they have left on earth by fattening them up, an end which will relieve the economic burdens faced by the poor by the revenue generated from the sale of their children and a decrease in mouths to feed, and of course an end which will satisfy the upper-class with a new and innovative culinary delight.
While a first and superficial glance may draw a conclusion that identifies More and Swift to be …show more content…
In Utopia, More decides to have Utopia apologized and advocated for by one Raphael Hythloday. Raphael, being the archangel most associated with healing (as in the book of Tobias), is an appropriate name for a man that More and Giles believe would be well suited to solve the world’s—or at least, a nation’s—problems as a statesman or a chancellor in the service of a king (p. 15). But Hythloday translates to “nonsense peddler” (Rudat, p. 41). With this understanding alone, our suspicions must be cast on Hythloday and we must wonder whether or not the author, Sir Thomas More, really intends to express his own ideas through a fictional figure of his own inventing, and who he has named to represent malpractice and
While a first and superficial glance may draw a conclusion that identifies More and Swift to be …show more content…
In Utopia, More decides to have Utopia apologized and advocated for by one Raphael Hythloday. Raphael, being the archangel most associated with healing (as in the book of Tobias), is an appropriate name for a man that More and Giles believe would be well suited to solve the world’s—or at least, a nation’s—problems as a statesman or a chancellor in the service of a king (p. 15). But Hythloday translates to “nonsense peddler” (Rudat, p. 41). With this understanding alone, our suspicions must be cast on Hythloday and we must wonder whether or not the author, Sir Thomas More, really intends to express his own ideas through a fictional figure of his own inventing, and who he has named to represent malpractice and