#252 Herland (1915)

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Title: Herland
Genre: Science Fiction
Year: 1915
Pages: 150
Origin: read on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 5 nods out of 5

 

Some of the greatest reads are those stumbled upon by wonderful accident. Many moons ago the Worm had the pleasure of taking a university module on dystopian fiction; it involved the novels of George Orwell, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter, whilst also including movies including the big hit The Matrix. In particular, the book of Atwood and Carter, dealing with issues of feminism, led the Worm to come across a tatty copy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland in the library. It was consumed in a flash, and – in the spirit of all great reads – changed the philosophy of its reader.

Years later the Worm decided to return to Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the past year her rousing short story – The Yellow Wallpaper – was read and enjoyed, but it failed to hit the highs of this earlier novel. Allow the Worm to outline the plot: three male adventurers come across a lost and forgotten land populated only by women. They first travel to the land firmly believing that they will conquer the females, and each of them – according to their profession – has a particular idea of femininity. Terry is the macho one of the trio and the man who has the luck with the ladies back home in America; his stance is shown in his words: ‘You’ll see… I’ll get solid with them all – and play one bunch against another. I’ll get myself elected king in no time – whew!’ Jeff, meanwhile, upholds female virtue, idolising their innocence. Vandyck, the novel’s narrator and affirmed “sociologist” is the middle-ground between these values and notions, leading the way for the demolition of these ideas as the novel progresses. The gender attributes they believed definite and carved in stone are revealed to be interchangeable. Rather than pathetic whelps the women of Herland hold an array of “masculine” qualities (such as intelligence and strength) whilst also being loving mothers.

Perkins Gilman has great fun in putting the male characters into the submissive position (being held prisoner after entering Herland). All of this leads Vandyck to reflect: ‘This led my very promptly to the conviction that those “feminine charms” we are so fond of are not feminine at all, but merely reflected masculinity – developed to please us because they had to please us.’

All of this is shown to illustrate the waging battle of the contemporary period in which the novel was written. 1915 saw the suffragette movement in the western world in full flow; Perkins Gilman was a vocal campaigner of this cause, putting the Sci-Fi genre to great effect. Although with heavy strands of socialism – then untainted by the later Soviet experiment- Herland is a novel that fights for what has been labelled “first wave feminism”: the recognition that females are equal with males and should be treated so in society.

Herland is an important novel: a great read that truly does change perceptions. The mystery is how it was forgotten for so long. The Worm utterly endorses it to the full maximum of 5 nods in order to correct – in a very small way – the mistreatment of Perkins Gilman’s interesting and intriguing legacy.

Buy it here