Thomas More's Utopia and Renaissance Society In Utopia, the author, Thomas More, uses the main character Hythloday to express his criticism of 16th century European society and suggests a revolutionary social system of equality, freedom, and happiness. More's radical ideas of social, political, and even clerical reform were vastly different from the beliefs held by European Hierarchy at the beginning of the Renaissance. With the height of feudalism, the rise of capitalism, and the start …showed first 75 words of 1300 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1300 total…time when the Church was becoming worldly, and the royalty was becoming corrupt, More saw a need to step back and re-evaluate where the Church, Europe, and society as whole was heading. More did not intend his story of Utopia to be followed literally, nor did he think it could be. More, however, wished to provide an example of the opposite extreme; an extreme where everyone is good and generous and pious; a "utopian" society.