Isolation: The utopian society exists on an island, unknown to the rest of the world. The Governor’s description of Bensalem’s history says that “navigation did everywhere greatly decay; and specially far voyages…were altogether left and omitted.” This calls to mind the cessation of the voyages of Zheng He, which had occurred approximately a century prior to this writing. The theme of isolation is also shown in their ordinances regarding strangers, and in their prohibitions for their own people of leaving the island.
Scientific and cultural advancement: The Governor describes Bensalem as a relic of a more advanced time. As such, they have many societal advancements. For example, their medicine is able to quickly cure the sick of the narrator’s party, the establishment of their order of Salomon’s House reflects their dedication the “study of the works and creatures of God,” and their Feast of the Family reflects a cultural reverence of the familial institution which could be likened to that of Confucius. The governor describes the voyages which they make for the purpose of sustaining this advancement, bringing back “knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world.”
Piety/Purity/Chastity: The first point of exchange between the narrator’s party and the representatives of Bensalem is based on their shared christianity, and the Governor tells them the story of the revelation which had brought christianity to their society. Later, when the narrator is speaking to the trader Joabin, he hears that “there is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem; nor so free from all pollution or foulness. It is the virgin of the world.” The notion of piety is constantly couched in the terminology of purity by omission—”there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind.”
