Revista de Letras - Utad

Two Perspectives of Euthanasia in English Literature… 201
dichotomous mark on Utopia too. His main concern in writing this delicate satire
was to describe just how preferable the heathen Utopian society was to many
Renaissance societies of his own day. By no means did More condone all of the
Utopians’ practices, as he himself affirms at the end of Book Two: “I cannot
agree with everything he said. Yet I confess there are many things in the
Commonwealth of Utopia that I wish our own country would imitate” (More
1992: 85). It remains enigmatic how he never states outright what he does not
agree with and which ‘things’ he wishes his country would imitate.
Indeed, the contradictions between More’s own deep religious convictions
and the principles upheld in Utopia are divisive (see Carey 1999: xii) and at the
very least puzzling for many readers and academics alike. For, More led a life of
religious devotion, and yet, on the island of Utopia, euthanasia is allowed under
certain circumstances as for instance: “[when] life is simply torture and the
world a mere prison cell … he [a man suffering from an incurable disease]
should not hesitate to free himself, or to let others free him” (More 1992: 60).
This is clearly an infringement of the basic teachings of the Catholic Church,
which had not claimed the power to allow any type of suicide. Under these
circumstances, if the person contemplating suicide waited for authorisation, no
suicide would be possible in More’s time, but rather he could expect
condemnation and possibly prosecution. The reader is left further baffled when
More, who appears as a character in the discussion, expresses his disagreement
with the arguments his own book presents: “it seemed to me that not a few of the
customs and laws he had described as existing among the Utopians were quite
absurd” (More 1992: 84). Yet again, what then were More’s motives for writing
something apparently in contradiction to his beliefs?
The answer to such a question appears to be manifold but such popular
misunderstanding of More’s own views and beliefs might be attributed to the
fact that Utopia was written in the form of a dialogue. Indeed, More’s work is
not a manifesto, but rather a labyrinth of detailed and at times almost cryptic
meditation concerning the best state of the ideal commonwealth. Seated in the
most delightful of settings, which serves as a stimulant to pleasant conversation,
the traveller Raphael Hythloday, who becomes the principal speaker in the
Utopian dialogue, embarks on the intoxicatingly enthralling tale of the island of
Utopia to two other characters, Peter Giles and Thomas More himself. And
naturally, as is the case in most conversations, there are moments when More’s
own beliefs are not in conformity with Hythloday’s and he voices them quite
readily under his own name: “‘But I don’t see it that way,’ I replied. ‘It seems to
me that men cannot possibly live well where all things are in common … I for
one cannot conceive of authority existing among men who are equal to one
another in every aspect’” (More 1992: 29).