"goodnight and goodbye, and thanks for the good times"

the intro to my essay on thomas more's 'utopia'


Tort, Franco
Humane Letters 10A
26.8.2010
A State of Nature:
Can the concept of individuality exist in More’s Utopia?
“If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”
-albert camus' 'the myth of sisyphus'

There is, in all human beings, a degree of consciousness of their ‘human condition’. This is, in part, what makes us all human beings. Without consciousness, we are nothing. Without consciousness, we are automatons. Albert Camus made this clear when writing his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus”. He wrote, “If this is tragic, that is because the hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?”, and in this statement reveals much about the nature of a human being; we only suffer if we recognize our suffering; we only exist if we recognize that we do, and therein is individuality. In the underworld, Sisyphus recognizes his condition; he contemplates it as his rock returns to the base of its hill, but in the suffering brought on by his consciousness also lays his joy; he is human; “All [his] silent joy is contained therein”. In Thomas More’s novel, Utopia, he makes such a concept very clear. The citizens of Utopia do not suffer, because they are made to be happy. They are content simply because they do not know the concept of discontent. Most of all, however, they are content because they have lost their human-ness; they have lost their individuality. The citizens of Utopia are incapable of being individuals.