Herland and the Utopian Perspective

            So, Herland was a pretty interesting read and got me thinking about a lot of stuff. I’m glad that this was also written in a story format like Bellamy and Morris’s writing because it made it more accessible to me.  I’m also glad that Gilman wrote this story short enough for us to read the whole thing because it gave me all of the context that I needed for such a story.  But did you know that this is actually the second book of a trilogy? That kind of blew my mind especially since I thought this text did well standing on its own.  If anything Gilman went a little too far in Herland because a lot of the stuff that I was on board with in the beginning of the text gets contradicted in the end.  I researched the book that comes after Herland and found out that Gilman gets even more contradictory! Ellador and Van eventually leave our world to go back to Herland where Ellador then gives birth to a son.  I thought Gilman was saying that society would be better if we were all independent and autonomous through her representation of women living alone and asexually reproducing.  But now Ellador and Van have organically brought the first male into Herland.  So I guess Gilman confused me.

            For the first part of Herland, she satirizes the society she lived in—when the three men arrive in Herland they try to lure out the women with fashionable accessories.  The women, living in a land where unnecessary luxuries don’t exist, are unfazed, showing two things: one, that women are not materialistic, unreasonable beings and, two, that society would be better off if we focused on the things we need.  Simplicity leads to happiness.  Gilman is writing a feminist treatise as well as proposing ideas for a better society.

            I think a lot of this text can be taken as “anti-men” because Terry is such a forceful, disgusting character, the women have been surviving without men, and that the three travelers are constantly outsmarted by the women. But I really don’t think that is Gilman’s point.  Utopias are impossible to achieve so instead Gilman is outlining the customs she wanted her society to adopt: reverence for motherhood, women having complete control over their own bodies, and autonomy for all.  When the three travelers learn about and adhere to Herland’s ways of life, they are allowed full autonomy as well.

            The contradiction comes up in the love story aspect of Herland.  While I don’t think that the relationship between the travelers and the women inherently means power is being taken away from the women, I do see it as Gilman retreating from her original insistence on autonomy.  Romantic and sexual relationships do not make sense to the women, but they still fall for the men now that they are present in their society.  Its like saying that because men are present, women must fall for them. Terry is so terrible and Alima fights with him constantly, but she still enters a romantic relationship with him.  The women don’t understand marriage, but are still coerced into it by the men.  I know Gilman’s feminist ideas are restricted by the society around her, but I thought she could perhaps have achieved more for autonomy like she did in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (which I highly recommend).