Five-minute digest
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.
Top 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.
Motherhood and education
Herland organizes its whole society around raising children well. Readers can weigh the strengths and costs of that choice.
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.
Verified Quotes
“This is written from memory, unfortunately.”
“There are no men in this country. There has not been a man among us for two thousand years.”
“The children in this country are the one center and focus of all our thoughts.”
“Patriotism is largely pride, and very largely combativeness.”
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".
- Chapter 6: Comparisons Are Odious
The tutors describe their society as organized around mothers and children.