Utopia Vs.

Dystopia

1) Jacob Kaiser
2) Experiencing the Humanities-Comm 101
3) Professor Martin
4) 9/26/16

Thomas Mores books seem to have the goal to create a perfect world in which there

would be no economic issues or troubles amongst others in the communities. Within his books,

there is also excerpts of a dystopian world which makes it that of an almost hellish world to live

in. Alongside this form of a perfect world, Ursula Le Guin writes in her book The Left Hand of

Darkness and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, excerpts of both a Utopia and dystopian

lifestyle. Some of the similarities within Le Guins and Mores book include the marriage issues

and equality among others in the community, while Huxley describes the good behind cloning

and making everyone the same.

Thomas Mores vision of marriage and premarital sex is nothing compared to that of Le

Guin and her odd world. More states Premarital intercourse, if discovered and proved, brings

severe punishment(More 71). This vision of how sex should be saved for marriage serves as a

utopian way of living as such that it is more important than just an act of pleasure. The

dystopian/ hellish issue with this law is it is almost to the point of unnecessary because the

parents of the household where the offense occurred suffer public disgrace for having been

remiss(72) despite them not actually doing the action. However, Le Guin describes her way of

sexual intercourse in a quite disturbing and dystopian way. In The Left Hand of Darkness, they

describe the time of sex as a somer-kemmer cycle (Le Guin 300). This is a period of time

where they cant partake in any sexual actions until it came to the heat(297) where two

kemmer-partners(299) come together with consent from both people and they have sexual
drives for several days. This world is a form of dystopia compared to Mores laws of marriage

because the people in Le Guins story never truly love each other or even marry.

In the section of Social Relations in Mores book, he talks about the tight knit community

which is quite different from Huxleys world. More states when women grow up and are

married, they move into their husbands households (49). The reasoning behind them moving

into their spouses homes is that More wanted a controlled population so it was never crowded.

His goal was to keep about six thousand households (49) within the cities; therefore, it was

easier to keep track of the population and knowing whether it was too big or too small. People

would probably think that the way he handled this issue was fairly smart and part of what is

considered a Utopian way of life. Unlike More, Huxley uses a quite disturbing way to control the

population in the community. The Bokanovskys Process (Huxley 289) was the way people

were made. The process was to take embryos and fertilize them with eggs. Making everyone

alike and the people of the community unable to have sex amongst themselves because they

wanted to keep the population at the set number. The problem with this process was that these

people were all the same and they werent able to produce their own families or even live normal

lives because everyone around them was the same. Therefore, Huxleys world would be

considered a dystopia compared to Mores ways of life.

Finally, something both More and Le Guin had in common was the social order/equality

of others throughout their books. It seems that in Le Guin since they do not see one another as

men or women (Le Guin 301) that these people only have one choice to be equal. Despite how

weird the world may be, the goal is that women dont have to worry about their rights being

disregarded and men dont have the power over anyone. In this world, there is no un-

consenting sex (301) and no division of humanity (301). Making this part of the world
utopian and comparable to More and his society. Within Mores society they follow such

religious beliefs that make them keep a problem free community. More says, their religious

principles are of this nature: that the soul of man is immortal, and by Gods goodness born for

happiness (60). What More is explaining, is that with the following of the rules and laws set

throughout the religions, it makes the place somewhere someone would see as an enjoyable place

to live.

Mores world is majority Utopia because of the way he wants it to run would be close to a

perfect world. He uses examples of strategies that could possibly help/work in todays world

despite this book being written so long ago. There are several reasons people would like to live

in Mores world including: the controlled population, nearly crime free, and freedom of religion.

These things are what is wrong with our world nowadays and he saw this way back in his time

and pointed them out. Le Guins world is just disturbing and people wouldnt want to live here

not being able to not know what sex they were or even have the freedom to live a life as a male

or female. This world has its utopian ways, but others would think it is more dystopian because it

takes away from the normal life cycle of how someone should live. Huxley is majority dystopia.

His world is filled with pretty much clones after clones walking around and everyone looking the

same. Also, like Le Guin, it takes away from the reality of a normal life cycle. Thinking of others

ideas of good societies, they would look at all these worlds and try to find what seems to the

place to live and it would more than likely be Mores world. His world is something a lot like our

own and it would be something easily adjusted too and also overall a better place to live.
Sources

More, Thomas. Utopia. 1516. Norton Critical Edition

Le Guin, Ursula The Left Hand of Darkness. 1969

Huxley, Aldous Brave New World. 1932