Basic Narrative Strategy in Utopia: “Indirect Approach”

Türkçe

The fact that Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most widely interpreted texts in Western literature stems from its open-endedness and ambivalent in terms of style and narration. This ambiguity has enabled numerous interpretations of the work, contradictory or parallel, confident or hesitant. The relationship between this ambivalent narrative style and the purpose of the work has generally been understudied in various analyses, or explained as a reflection of More's playful temperament. The presentation of a concrete and seemingly feasible social order, combined with the criticism of the existing order and political power, could render the work itself objectionable for kings and aristocrats. From its title and ironic language onward, More appears to use his narrative tools in Utopia with this awareness and adopts an indirect approach. The fiction seems to have been designed to distance him from the ideas in Utopia and to enable the claim that the work could be dismissed as a joke or an imaginative exercise if he faced potential accusations. Utopia contains many textual clues that support this claim. This article aims to analyze More's narrative strategy in connection with these self-protective concerns through textual evidence.