Okay, is it just me or did this endless description the geographical features in Utopia and its irrelevant details remind you of the beginning of The Mayor of Casterbridge? I mean pages upon pages of (what seems to me) pointless descriptions that could be left out. A lot of the footnotes didn't help me either---like I still didn't understand the damn allusions after I read the footnotes!
Anyway, on to other things...
More's description contradicts itself a lot. First, it says, "agriculture is the one occupation at which everyone works, men and women alike, with no exceptions. They are trained in it from childhood...and partly through field trips to nearby farms" (44). THEN, page 45, the texts says, "every person (and this includes women as well as men) learns a second trade, besides agriculture. As the weaker sex,women practice the lighter crafts, such as working in wool or linen; the heavier tasks are assigned to the men" (45). (Not the point right now but this sexism also contradicts equality in Utopia...anyway...)
Page 47 goes in a different direction and names people who are exempt from working: "in each city and it's surrounding countryside barely five hundred of those men and women whose age and strength make them fit for work are exempted from it. Among these are syphogrants, who by law are free not to work, yet they do not take advantage of the privilege, preferring to set a good example to their fellow citizens. Some others are permanently from work so they may devote themselves to study...ambassadors, scholars, priests, tranibors and the governor"." How are all of the people equal if certain groups are given privileges that others are not? This sounds like the world I'm used to, and Utopia is not much different. The text doesn't even say these people are except from second trades, so I assume that they don't work at all. Sure people can do busy work all day and look like they're actually doing something---I know plenty of lazy people who can achieve this. Who's to say these highly favored men aren't taking advantage?
THEN, page 46 yet again hazes the duties of the citizens, women in particular: "in the first place, hardly any of the women, who are half of the population work; or if they do, then as a rule their husbands lie snoring in bed." WTF!?
Also, a little against the point but something I found interesting is the fact that Utopia prides itself on being such civil and organized people, but they force natives to give up THEIR land for them to ruin with agriculture and other urban processes. The Utopian settlers clearly understand that this land does not belong to them because they say it belonged to someone else, but they justify their barbaric behavior of starting war with the explanation that these people are wasting their land?! I don't want to live in Utopia anymore! When the self-righteous ass Europeans came over to North America, they pushed Native Americans around and oppressed them in their own land! How is this any different? How can such a horrible place be celebrated, and how do they think they are any better than their European counterparts if they're doing the SAME THING? I want off this fucking islan
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