Thomas More's Utopia as a Social ModelIn his famous work Utopia, Sir Thomas More describes the society and culture of an imaginary island on which all social evils were cured. As in Plato's Republic, the work from which More drew inspiration to write Utopia, More's work presents his ideas through a dialogue between two characters, Raphael Hythloday and More himself. Hythloday is a fictional character who describes his recent journey to the paradise island of Utopia. Throughout the work, Hythloday describes the laws, customs, system of government, and way of life that exist in Utopia to an incredulous and somewhat condescending More. Throughout the work, Hythloday presents a society organized to overcome the flaws of human nature. This society was carefully designed by More – as the author of the work – to avoid the problems associated with human nature. Individual human appetites are controlled and balanced against the needs of the community as a whole. In other words, More is attempting to describe a society in which the seven deadly sins are balanced by other incentives put in place by the government and society as a whole. More seems to think that the seven deadly sins will be fairly easy to overcome. Pride, for example, is counterbalanced in several ways in one's social system. For example, he makes sure everyone wears the same clothes, except that different genders wear different styles, just like married and single people. Plus also makes individuals quite interchangeable within the social system -- a carpenter, for example, seems more or less similar to another and can find work wherever carpenters are needed. He also says that utopians encourage their ci...... middle of paper ......consumed by the lust for power because of the way he was raised, others in his society would have been. No society can control the motivations of all individuals involved to the point of completely eliminating the lust for power among all its members. More's utopia therefore presents a beautiful theory, but too abstract, too platonic, too rationalist and with too little understanding of true human motivations to be feasible. However, this is not a useless or worthless work: it contains many deep psychological ideas, quite a bit of humor, and many very good points. I doubt, however, that it is feasible as a complete social system. Works Cited: More information, Sir Thomas. Utopia. New York: Washington Square Press, 1965. Marlowe, Christopher. The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus. Ed. Louis B. Wright. New York: Washington Square Press, 1959.