Herland

Summary

Herland is a utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in twelve monthly installments in her magazine The Forerunner in 1915. It did not appear as a book until 1979, when Pantheon published it with an introduction by the historian Ann J. Lane. The narrator, Vandyck (Van) Jennings, a sociologist, joins two friends on a scientific expedition: Terry Nicholson, a wealthy, self-confident adventurer, and Jeff Margrave, a doctor with romantic ideas about women. Hearing rumors of a hidden land inhabited only by women, they fly in by biplane, are captured without violence, and are held in a comfortable fortress while three tutors teach them the language. They learn that about two thousand years before, war and a volcanic eruption sealed the valley off from the world and left no men alive. A young woman then began to bear daughters without a father, and all the present inhabitants descend from her. The women have built a peaceful, cooperative society centered on motherhood and the education of children, with no war, no poverty and no family names. They control their numbers by limiting births, practice what the narrator calls "negative eugenics", and hold a religion of a loving, motherly power. Each man responds differently. Jeff idealizes Herland, Van gradually revises his assumptions, and Terry insists that the women must want to be mastered. The three marry Celis, Ellador and Alima. When Terry tries to force himself on Alima, he is tried and sentenced to leave the country. Van and Ellador go with him so that Ellador can see the outside world, while Jeff stays with Celis, who is expecting a child. The novel uses the men's surprise to question ideas of femininity, marriage and national pride in Gilman's America. Its sequel, With Her in Ourland, followed in The Forerunner in 1916. Modern readers value its satire and imagination, and also note that its eugenic ideas reflect views widespread in Gilman's time.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters 1–3: Arrival

  Three American men fly into a hidden country of women, are captured gently and imprisoned in a fortress.

• Chapters 4–6: Learning Herland

  Their tutors explain that there are no men and describe the history and motherhood-centered culture of the land.

• Chapters 7–9: Courtship

  The men are released, meet Celis, Ellador and Alima, and find that their ideas of romance do not fit Herland.

• Chapters 10–11: Religion and marriage

  Van learns about Herland's faith and education, and the three couples marry, with very different expectations.

• Chapter 12: Expelled

  Terry's attempt to force Alima leads to his expulsion; Van and Ellador leave with him to visit the outside world.

Characters

• Vandyck (Van) Jennings, protagonist

  Sociologist and narrator, the most open-minded of the three men.

• Terry O. Nicholson, major

  Wealthy explorer who believes women want to be dominated.

• Jeff Margrave, major

  Doctor and romantic who idealizes the women.

• Ellador, major

  Thoughtful forester who marries Van.

• Celis, major

  Gentle young woman who marries Jeff.

• Alima, major

  Spirited woman who marries Terry.

• Somel, minor

  Van's tutor, who explains much of Herland's life.

• Zava and Moadine, minor

  The other men's tutors.

Lessons

• Seeing our own society from outside

  The men's astonishment at Herland exposes assumptions they had never questioned. Students can use the novel to examine customs that seem natural.

  • Which of Terry's beliefs about women prove wrong?
  • What does Van come to see differently about his own country?

• Motherhood and education

  Herland organizes its whole society around raising children well. Readers can weigh the strengths and costs of that choice.

  • How are children educated in Herland?
  • What do the women give up for the good of the nation?

• Utopia and its limits

  Like other utopias, Herland invites questions about what a perfect society would require. Some of its answers, such as eugenics, were debated then and are widely rejected now.

  • Would you want to live in Herland? Why or why not?
  • What does the novel's view of eugenics reveal about its time?

Context

Gilman wrote during the Progressive Era, when the movement for women's suffrage was nearing success and reformers debated work, housing, child-rearing and the place of women in public life. Utopian fiction had been popular since Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888).

Composition

Gilman wrote, edited and published The Forerunner single-handedly from 1909 to 1916, filling it with essays, stories and serial novels. Herland ran from January to December 1915 and was followed by the sequel With Her in Ourland in 1916.

Reception

The serial reached only the magazine's small readership and was largely forgotten until the 1979 book edition, which made it a widely read work of feminist utopian fiction. Later critics have also examined the novel's eugenic and racial assumptions.

Comparisons

• The Yellow Wallpaper

  Gilman's earlier story shows a woman confined and silenced; Herland imagines a society in which women run everything.

• Utopia

  More's founding work of the genre also describes an ideal commonwealth through the report of a traveler.

• Gulliver's Travels

  Swift's satire, like Gilman's, uses a visitor to a strange land to criticize the visitor's own society.

• The Subjection of Women

  Mill's essay makes in argument form the case against the subordination of women that Gilman dramatizes.

• Brave New World

  Huxley's later novel turns the planned control of reproduction and education into a dystopia.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How each of the three men describes the women.
• What Herland's people value most.
• Moments when the narrator is embarrassed by his own country.
• Ideas in the novel that belong to the debates of 1915, such as eugenics.

Key terms and names

Utopia

An imagined ideal society; from Thomas More's book of that name.

Satire

Writing that uses humor or exaggeration to criticize.

Parthenogenesis

Reproduction without fertilization, as in Herland's virgin births.

Eugenics

An early twentieth-century movement to 'improve' heredity by controlling who has children, now widely rejected.

Progressive Era

A period of American reform from about the 1890s to the 1920s.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How did Herland come to have no men?
2. Comprehension Why is Terry expelled from Herland?
3. Interpretation Why does Gilman tell the story through a male narrator?
4. Interpretation What is Gilman criticizing when the men describe their own country?
5. Big Question Is a perfect society possible, and what would it cost?
6. Big Question Which differences between men and women are natural, and which are learned?

Faith Connections

• Isaiah 66:13 (Scripture)

  'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you': Herland's religion pictures the divine as a loving mother, a biblical image the novel develops in its own way.

• Thomas More, Utopia (Great Conversation)

  More's imagined island and Gilman's hidden valley both test their readers' society against an ideal.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: By showing three men's surprise at a capable, peaceful society of women, the novel argues that many traits called feminine are products of custom, and that a society organized around the care of children could be wiser than its own.

Rhetorical device: satire. Terry's confident claims about what women want are repeatedly contradicted by the women of Herland.

Debate: Resolved: Herland is more a satire of 1915 America than a serious plan for a better society.

Memory Work

There are no men in this country. There has not been a man among us for two thousand years.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain how Gilman uses Van's narration to change the reader's view of 'femininity'.

Comparison with Utopia: Compare the ideal societies of More's Utopia and Gilman's Herland, including what each society controls.

Medical Lens

Herland's women reproduce without men and plan births for the health of the nation, including what the narrator calls "negative eugenics"; the society's attention to diet, hygiene, exercise and child care is presented as an ideal of public health. Jeff Margrave is a doctor, and the novel reflects early twentieth-century debates about heredity and motherhood.

• Chapter 5: A Unique History

  The origin of Herland's virgin births and its period of "negative eugenics".

  Childbirth Maternal Heredity Degeneration
• Chapter 6: Comparisons Are Odious

  The tutors describe their society as organized around mothers and children.

  Childbirth Maternal Women and Medicine

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write Ellador's first letter home after arriving in the United States.

• Essay

  Compare how Van, Jeff and Terry change, or fail to change, during their stay in Herland.

• Classroom

  Design a school for Herland's children based on details from the novel, then discuss what you would keep or change.

Further Reading

• With Her in Ourland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann J. Lane