The Blazing World

Cavendish considers three separate societies to illustrate the importance of social unity to utopia.

The most successful society is the Blazing World, where no divisions of culture or beliefs exist between visually quite different peoples: “there was but one language in all that World: nor no more but one Emperor, to whom they all submitted with the greatest duty and obedience” (67). Under the rule of their absolute monarch, the citizens “live in a continued Peace and Happiness” (67). Cavendish makes the importance of unity clear when describing the Empress’s failed attempts to change some of the Blazing World’s laws and religious beliefs—a decision that immediately creates strife and conflict. Only when the Empress “ordered and settled her Government” (143) does peace and community return.

The war and instability experienced by the Duchess’s world and the Empress’s old world are directly connected to the absence of unified power structures and citizenry. The Duchess’s world—basically, our Earth—is the antithesis of unity, featuring deep divisions between peoples: It has “several soveraign Governments, Laws and Customs of several Nations” and “many several Nations, Governments, Laws, Religions, Opinions,” which are “very much disturbed with factions, divisions and wars” (126, 127).