A Different Species?!

From the beginning of Chapter 10:
"It took me a long time, as a man, a foreigner, and a species of Christian--I was that as much as anything--to get any clear understanding of the religion of Herland."

This speaks to the many flawed facets of the viewpoints of the three boys, as I feel like it culturally does distort our lens a little bit. In a smaller context, patriarchal Christianity would seem totally unfit to the form and function of Herland. The women are disturbed at the seemingly-undeserving eternal punishment damning babies for eternity following the Fall of Man, and rightly so. On a greater scale, the "species" of Christianity has me wondering if the women seem mystical or alien enough to feel entirely inhuman or if there is a closer connection than we think and the factors of man and Christianity would aim to distort actualization of those similarities.

Pls discuss

I think we all are on the same page (or same chapter at least) when it comes to appreciating Herland. So with that in mind, a question to flex our minds a bit:

How does Gilman create a utopia that reads so positively? How do her choices as an author make it such an optimistic exploration?

For context, I'm sure that an Orwell would find a way to write about Herland in a far different light...

And finally: a collection of the guys' actual reactions to Herland

Terry

Jeff

Van

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.

Herland

Since the beginning of this book explored the physical aspects of "Herland" and the women that reside there I wanted to see if I could find a drawing or map that outlined the country. In my search, I couldn't find what I was looking for but instead, I found this image from an alternate book cover that I thought was really interesting. I really like how this cover depicts the women as integrated into or almost part of the land itself.