Utopia

The main character of More’s novel is Raphael Nonsenso, a Portuguese sailor whom More and Gilles meet in Antwerp near the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

In the original edition of More’s work, Raphael’s last name appears in Greek as Hythlodaeus, which means “dispenser of nonsense” (xii). As a former associate of the famed Italian traveler and merchant Amerigo Vespucci, Raphael is described as perhaps one of the most well-traveled people in the world and is frequently compared to Ulysses. He is a foil to the pragmatic and moderate approach to social problems we see exhibited in More. Raphael, by contrast, is a radical and an uncompromising idealist. He insists upon solving social problems by attacking them at their systematic root.

Raphael has a keen mind and remarkable powers of memory whereby he recounts tales of the foreign cultures and lands he encountered in his travels around the globe. By seeing various alternative forms of social organization, Raphael has also developed a sense that a new form of social order, one that is radically different from the status quo in late medieval Europe, is possible. Raphael thus represents a potential value of multiculturalism. Understanding different cultures can help us think critically about our own.