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Ethos
Frame Story
Explanation and Analysis—Raphael the Storyteller:
The stories Raphael tells about the country of Utopia are frame stories—More, the narrator and "main character," is relating these stories secondhand to the reader. Furthermore, the entirety of Utopia consists of More relating the events of a past encounter and the content of a past conversation with Raphael and Giles. These stories within stories mean that the narrative has very little action or plot within the present timeline—one could picture More sitting down with the reader to discuss these past encounters.
Frame stories like Utopia can offer the author some level of remove from the political implications of his or her work. By making himself a character in his own novel, and creating the character Raphael to serve as the "storyteller within a story," More distances himself from his own political position. This is a form of self-preservation; it also permits More a certain amount of license for ambiguity—he can debate himself on controversial problems that may not have a singular, straightforward solution, and he can do so in a way that makes it seem like little more than a thought experiment, thus helping him circumnavigate any sort of backlash from the public or the monarchy of the day.
