One such problem is that of Plato's abolition of the family within the ideal city--"All these women shall be wives in common to all the men, and not one of them shall live privately with any man; the children too should be held in common so that no parent shall know which is his own offspring, and no child shall know his parent" (Plato 119).

The prescription of eugenics pales, though, in comparison to the belief in the value of infanticide--"[t]he children of good parents they will take to a rearing pen in the care of nurses living apart in a certain section of the city; the children of inferior parents, or any child of the others born defective, they will hide, as is fitting, in a secret and unknown place" (Plato 121-122). Obviously, then, Plato's Republic, although in many ways a very Humanist work, also stands in opposition to a number of key Christian beliefs and tenets.

Before delving into the specific similarities and differences between the two works, it is important to be aware of the aims of the two books. Utopia provides a description of "the most civilized nation in the world" (More 70). Plato's Republic, however, is only a work of political philosophy by polemic accident. Plato is not interested in defining the perfect state. He uses the state as a large-scale picture of the soul, in his search for the perfect soul, and then for justice. "Plato does not intend his ideal city to be thought of as an actuality or even as a practical possibility" (Ferguson 68). There is definitely a difference between "discursive philosophical argument about an ideal city and the circumstantial description of a utopian society, telling a story" (Manuel 120).

One of the most striking similarities between the works is that they are both written in the form of dialogues.

Although there are similarities of expository style, the two works differ on the desirability of a class-less society. Plato feels that a just city depends on having every person fill their proper role, and the fulfillment of roles leads to a class system.

More's Utopia is almost purely egalitarian. Within Utopia, there is no rigid tripartite division as in Plato. It is not totally classless, but it is still very close to the communist ideal. Everyone gets "plenty of everything that's needed for a comfortable life" (More 76-77). After all, when "the head of a household needs anything for himself or his family, he just goes to one of these shops and asks for it. . . . he's allowed to take [it] away without any sort of payment, either in money or in kind" (More 80). In Utopia, "there's no such thing as private property" (More 73).

This asceticism, not surprising when one considers that More afflicted himself through such indignations as wearing a hairshirt, is, although more radical, inherited from Plato. When reading the Republic, it is useful to compare the guardian class to the Utopian society. They live together in camps, sharing their property (including their children), drawing their earnings from the society as a whole. This is an egalitarian society, but only within the class.

Plato's egalitarianism is taken to a violent extreme that More largely discards. In the Platonic political nirvana, there would not only be no families but also no nondesirable children. Children would be raised communally to prevent family bonds from forming, as they would interfere with the closeness of the city.

More's family structures are much more conservative. In Utopia, "the smallest social unit is the household, which is virtually synonymous with the family" (More 79). When a couple gets married a wife joins her husband's household, and men stay in the family unit until they grow senile or die. Family units are headed by the oldest male, an obvious borrowing from the basic Judeo-Christian ethic of respecting both one's elders and one's parents. Utopia is also very hospitable to mothers. The concept of eliminating parental bonds to their children extant in Plato's Republic is non-existent in Utopia. Not only do parents keep their children, but the society itself is structured to make the job of motherhood as easy as possible. Women sit on the outside of the dining hall "so that if they suddenly feel sick, as pregnant women do from time to time, they can get up" (More 82). In Utopia, "[b]abies are always breast-fed by their mother," and if the mother cannot fulfill this responsibility, other Utopian women will be glad to serve as wet-nurses (More 82). He is also willing to compromise the family for the good of the city. Households that are too large (over sixteen adults) can be divided with the extra adults going to other, smaller (under ten adults), households (More 79). Furthermore, if a town is too full its population is transferred to another town, and if the island of Utopia is overpopulated, some citizens leave to colonize the mainland. Although not as radical as Plato, More is willing to weigh the sometimes contradictory benefits of a strong family structure and a strong political structure.

When defining the importance of education and less formal learning, More was unable to shake his Humanist trappings. Utopia is a nation in which everyone is educated and everyone continues to be educated. "Lunch and supper begin with a piece of improving literature read aloud" (More 83). Furthermore, "Most people spend [their] free periods on further education, for there are public lectures first thing every morning" (More 76). The leaders of Utopia--"diplomats, priests,Bench eaters, and of, course mayors"--are taken from the intelligentsia, a special class who are excused from having to work so that they can study full-time. One important aspect of the Utopian intelligentsia, though, is that any citizen can join it, if they study hard enough. In true Platonic form, Utopia allows the resident to "cultivate his mind--which they regard as the secret of a happy life" (More 79).
Plato's educational system is very different. Most noticeably, it differs from class to class and is not as open to inter-class mobility. Education in some aspects of the Platonic system is aimed at producing perfect soldiers or perfect leaders, while More's system is more general-purpose. While Utopia contains no mention of a need for censorship, the Republic is rife with it. While Plato calls for "education in the arts," he limits the arts (Plato 71). The arts to be taught are only those which would serve some purpose other than aesthetics. Plato only wants to see poetry of "good rhythm"taught, for instance, because it is directly related to the goodness of the soul (Plato 70). The Humanist insistence on raw knowledge is replaced by a proto-Machiavellian view of education as a means to an end of political order.

More and Plato also differ on the appropriateness of democracy. Plato's Republic provides for rule by a largely hereditary guardian class. The society is structured in such a fashion that everyone stays within narrowly defined roles, making it somewhat impossible for anyone other than the guardians to rule. Plato, very simply, "does not believe in 'grassroots' democracy" (Ferguson 68). In Utopia, however, although the leaders are drawn from the intelligentsia, there exist not only opportunities to join that class but the system also allows its citizens to have a voice. Utopian local government is a hierarchical system in which the people choose and consult with their representatives--a representative democracy of a sort. Major decisions are referred to the Council of the Stywards, who get direct input from the electorate (More 74). Cities, additionally, send three of their "older and more experienced citizens to an annual meeting at Aircastle" (More 70). The Parliament, therefore, is made up of not the ruling class, but instead of the best of the general populace. This, obviously, is a very democratic system, one which is somewhat surprising when one considers that it was developed by a servant of the English king, and not of the(ostensibly more democratic) Parliament.

Even if one wishes to ignore the historical facts of Plato's works being a part, albeit a controversial part, of Humanism, one cannot ignore Utopia's status as a response, in one way or another, to Plato's Republic. More makes it clear that Utopia considers Plato in the introduction to the book written by Mr. Windbag, the Poet Laureate of Utopia--"Plato's Republic now I claim / To match or beat at its own game;" (More 27).

Many of More's developments are not in reference to Plato because analogues to them are absent from his works. One such example is that of the many provisions (already discussed) for respecting the older members of society. The most important example, though,is that of sexual morality. Although both societies try to regulate sexuality, More's methods appear to be more within the realm of the Western ethical code (although his punishments are somewhat harsh). More's attitudes towards suicide, though, are somewhat two-sided. As would be expected from a Judeo-Christian code, suicide is considered a disgrace, leading to the "[forfeiture of] all rights to either burial or cremation" (More 102).However, "[o]fficially sanctioned euthanasia is regarded as an honourable death" (More 102). Hopelessly terminal cases who are also suffering from great pain are encouraged to "break out and escape to a better world" (More 102). This is a divergence from the Judeo-Christian ethical code, but it makes perfect sense.

The Utopian's basic religious beliefs are strangely similar to those of Christianity. The "first principle" of their beliefs "is that every soul is immortal, and was created by a kind God" (More 91). Their second key belief "is that we shall be rewarded or punished in the next world for our good or bad behaviour in this one" (More 91). The first principle bears some similarity to Plato's construct of the soul being separate from the body, Plato's God is as much a construct of the World of Forms as of a supernatural being, as extant in Christianity. Then again, it is interesting that "one of the most ancient principles of their constitution is religious toleration" (More 119). This provision is even more ironic when one reads it in the light of the Inquisitions and with the knowledge that years after writing it, More would be martyred due to Henry VIII's lack of such understanding.

One can be sure, and not only because of Nonsenso's poetry, that More read Plato and considered the Republic before writing his Utopia. When accepting Plato's ideas, though, he chose an a la carte approach. Rather than accepting the Republic's provisions for a proper state in its totality, he weaved and dodged among the currents of thought, picking out only those that were palatable to him in his position and time. Whether it be his expansion of the Platonic educational system or his development of a strict sexual moral code, More developed a new blueprint for the ideal state, but one still within some semblance of the Platonic framework. More may have felt that his Utopia was "no place," but in actuality,it was merely a few branches down the tree of human thought from Plato's Republic.

Sometimes a single incident provokes More to teach several lessons. Edward IV had a beautful mistress, Jane Shore, beloved by Hastings and taken over by him after Edward's death. More, calling her "Shore's wife," finds her example both proof of how earthly beauty dissolves into corruption and sure evidence for the ingratitude of human nature. She was beautiful and generous, he says, but now she is forgotten because, at the time More writes, she is "old, lean, withered, and dried up, nothing left but wrinkled skin and hard bone." His description has many affinities to the funerary monuments of the time that showed female bodies in hideous decay. The original motive, and one surely shared by More, was to point out how quickly bodily grace passes away so that onlookers might think more soberly of the eternal soul and its destiny. But by More's time, artists and writers alike seemed to depict corruption for corruption's sake and take a melancholy delight in recounting the details of physical disintegration.
Shore's wife never used her favor with the king to harm any man, More says, but "where the king took displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mind; where men were out of favor, she would bring them in his grace; for many that highly offended, she obtained pardon." Now she is utterly neglected, in "beggarly condition, unfriended and worn out of acquaintance." "For men are accustomed," More says," if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble, and whoso doth us a good turn, we write it in the dust; which is not worst proved by her, for at this day she beggeth of many at this day living, that at this day had begged if she had not been."
Despite his occasional digressions, More's narrative always returns to his major character, Richard himself. Richard's depravity lies in his fierce ambition that has long since corrupted all his natural human feelings, making him a monster. More has no sympathy for the dilemma that Richard's modern defenders have, with some truth, put strongly forward: Had the young princes escaped his power, Richard's property, position, and life have been endangered by the queen mother and the ambitious and ruthless men around her. For More, Richard's danger is only smoke, and he gives us a villain much like Shakespeare's Iago, doing evil continually only because evil is his nature.