“A Conspiracy of the Rich”: Dystopianizing the Real in More’s Utopia

The article presents an analysis of the ways in which Europe, at first presented in Book One of More’s Utopia as superior or at least comparable to the New World, is gradually turned into a dystopia as Hythloday increasingly concentrates on its faults and vices, especially when explicitly or implicitly contrasted with the ideal functioning of Utopia. This process of “dystopianizing” what for the readers constitutes the real culminates in Hythloday’s concluding harangue projecting Europe as the ultimate sin-driven dystopia.