The criticism that More expresses of the governing of Utopia reminds me of the movie WALL-E (2008) which is a utopia that is created in space and separate from earth, which is dying from pollution and greed. However, the Utopia did not turn out as expected and ended up not actually being a perfectly governed society but a damaging one to the people involved. More insinuates that the Utopia would not succeed, just as Pixar concludes that the perfect life described on the Axium would not actually succeed.

Raphael is describing the process of marriage and how it works for the people of Utopia, specifically, the choosing of a woman based on her body comparative to a horse. I found this interesting because it is a complete contradiction of More’s purpose in writing this, in being, a description of a perfectly governed society. For More to mock or criticize something that is, in fact, his own idea is something that is very confusing about this text. I think what he is trying to do is either discredit this island of Utopia, by saying that this could never be possible or to further establish that Utopia is a made-up place that More uses to separate the learned from the unlearned. I also found the use of the word “indecent” as interesting; it reminds me of how colonizers or “explorers” would denounce tribes of Natives for their religious views or cultural processes and a very heightened focus on their minimal bodily coverage.

Peter Giles is described as a close friend and colleague with Thomas More and is mentioned many times throughout the text. Giles is both seen as a fictional character in this story but also as a historical figure. He was a student to Erasmus and was later introduced to More through Erasmus. He is important to the story because he acts as a kind of reference to Raphael so that More talks to him about his travels and specifically his travels to Utopia.

The history behind the reference that More makes to the Cornish Rebellion in Book One is that; the rebellion was started by the people of Cornwall in 1497. It began as a response to the hardship that King Henry VII inflicted on the people of Cornwall to raise war taxes and had also stopped the operation of its tin-mining industry. This context is important to know, because it gives the reader more information, especially if they are not familiar with English History.

The word “worldly” as seen in the four verse lines included in the “Utopian Alphabet” is, originally, a Germanic word that was used in the early 1500s to describe “the world of human existence; relating or connected with human life on earth; earthly, mundane”. “worldly” also describes the inhabitants as “temporal, human, mortal, obsolete”. It is also used to separate the religious and secular worlds and material values. This is important to the understanding of the text of Utopia by Thomas More because More’s idea of a perfectly governed society is a break from the “worldly” possessions and ideas that are quite common in the society while writing in “Utopia in 1516. This feels as though it is also important to note the protestant reformation that was occurring around this time and Thomas More’s association with being a chancellor for Henry VIII and the ideas that he held concerning the worldly and secular worlds.