Herland Themes

      Two major themes stick out to me in Charlotte Gilman's book, "Herland". These two themes are Herland as a woman's utopia, and the idea of Motherhood. I find these two themes important because Herland itself, is focusing on the life of the women and they way the three men assimilate and learn from their ways and cultures.

      Herland, a women's Utopia, is the way it is because these women are not open to the outside world. There is no violence, abortion, unemployment, or negativity, while the women are intelligent, athletic, strong, self-confident, and independent. This only seems to be a Utopia because of the corrupted world that we live in. Our world in full of corruption, violence, poverty, stubbornness, greed, vulgar, negativity, filth, and harm. Herland, has never been exposed to this behavior before the men found them, and when the men were explaining to them the corrupt-ness, the women were disgusted, and almost horrified to hear the words come out of their mouth. The utopia is important in this story, to understand the purity of the women, encompassed within the greater, corrupted, outside world. 

       The second theme, of motherhood, is conquering this story hence the overpowering society of women in Herland. "We soon grew to see that mother-love has more than one channel of expression. I think the reason our children are so—so fully loved, by all of us, is that we never—any of us—have enough of our own". This quote, from chapter six, is about Van and his discussions with Somel. Gilman's purpose is to show that even though the women have lived their lives without men for so long, the coming of men does not make them any less feminine and they still do not lose their feelings. Not only are these women showing and expressing motherhood with children, but with kindness of heart and loving affection in general.