The Essential Opposition of Good and Evil

The seclusion of a culture and a society plays an important role throughout Gilman's Herland. It is only through seclusion that certain aspects of Herland can exist, like the virgin reproduction or the religious and ethical mindset of the women of Herland. "They ha[ve] no theory of the essential opposition of good and evil" focusing mostly on "growth" (Gilman 102). Gilman's main focus throughout the text is to change the readers perspective. This realization by the character, Van, on the way in which the perspective of an isolated people's has changed their perspective on how life is like is an in text example of what the reader should be experiencing, what the kids nowadays call being 'mindblown.' Just like how Plato focused on perspective and how the education of the next generation affects the future, Gilman is making a point that if the focus shifts from opposition to community and from past to the future then a positive future awaits us. Of course, it's easy to not focus on opposition when the community itself is isolated, as most Utopia's are. Gilman acknowledges this counterpoint inadvertently when she says that "shortcomings and misdeeds in childhood never were presented to them as sins" which provides a small scale example of what may happen if two societies were to clash (102). Also, Gilman could be saying that societies that do clash are still immature and can only improve which is a very positive outlook. Seclusion and isolation create absurd moments throughout the text that can only happen in fiction and yet, at the same time, creates important argumentative points like how perspective can change the perception of morality and how that perspective bleeds into other aspects of life which goes to show that the small things in life have big impacts.