Herland Summary

Vandyck “Van” Jennings says that the following events are written from his own memories, since he lost the detailed notebooks and pictures taken in Herland itself. Van states that he is going to do his best to describe the country without his old notes because the world needs to know what life there is like.

Van writes that the real adventure begins when he, Terry O. Nicholson, and Jeff Margrave are on an expedition unrelated to Herland. Their guide tells them that there is a mysterious country hidden in the wilderness that is comprised entirely of women and their daughters, with no men or boys; however, all the native men who have tried to find the land disappear without a trace. The guide brings them to a river that has evidence of red and blue dye that the guide claims is coming from the land of women. Thirsty for adventure and tantalized by the idea of a country full of women, Terry suggests to Van and Jeff that they should go back to America, prepare for a long expedition, and return to the area to find the mysterious women. Jeff, who believes that a country of women sounds like a utopia, and Van, who is intrigued and wants to study the sociology of an all-female society, both agree with Terry’s plan.

The men return to America and Terry, who is extremely wealthy, arranges to have a plane and motorboat bring them back to the unnamed jungle where Herland is rumored to be. The men find the river of dye and follow it as far as they can before having to leave the boat and prepare to fly over the mountains. Terry is an experienced pilot, so he flies himself, Van, and Jeff over the mountains. From the sky, the men can see miles of forests, well-developed towns, and even people down below. Terry lands the plane and the men hide it as best as they can in the forest. While the men prepare to explore the country by foot, they talk to each other about what they’ve seen so far. They theorize that the towns are so well developed that there must be men somewhere, although they might live in another part of the country. As it is, the only people the men were able to see from the sky were women.

The three men walk through the forest, closely inspecting the trees. Jeff and Terry realize that every single tree is growing either fruit or nuts and that the land has been very carefully cultivated so that it is producing the maximum amount of food that it can without being overburdened. In fact, the forest is more like a giant garden than a wilderness. The men remain wary, fearing that there must be men ready to protect all the women with violence if they have to. As they walk through the forest, Terry hears stifled giggling coming from somewhere nearby. Looking around, the men notice three figures watching them from the branches of a large tree. The men carefully begin climbing the tree and stop when they are within talking distance of the women. Terry introduces himself, Jeff, and Van by pointing at each and saying their names. One of the women does the same, introducing herself as Ellador and her companions as Alima and Celis. The women refuse to let the men any closer, so Terry holds out a bright necklace to Alima. Van realizes Terry’s plan is to grab Alima as soon as she gets close to the necklace, but the plan fails when Alima deftly grabs the necklace and drops from the tree before Terry can grab her. The women take off running and are soon out of reach. Pulling out their binoculars, the men see the women entering the closest city and start walking there.

When they enter the city, they notice that it is clean and well-maintained. Before they get far, however, a group of middle-aged women that Terry calls “the Colonels” surrounds them. Jeff, Van, and Terry follow the women to a large gray building. The men become alarmed and decide to fight back and make a run for freedom rather than be taken prisoner. It doesn’t take long for them to be overpowered, but in the process Terry shoots his gun twice and a cry from one of the women is heard. The Colonels place anesthetic rags over Terry, Jeff, and Van’s faces, which makes them fall asleep. When they wake up, they are in a large room with comfortable beds. They get up together and look around the room, discovering a bathroom with all of their toiletries inside and a closet full of Herlandian clothes, although their own clothes are missing. The men decide to wash up and get dressed before trying to find a way out of their room. The clothes (constituting a one-piece undergarment, stockings, and knee-length tunics) are very comfortable and have numerous pockets, much to the men’s surprise. After getting dressed, they knock on the only locked door in the room. The door opens into a large dining hall full of tables, chairs, and sofas. There is plenty of food and 18 women are waiting for them. Each man is placed at his own table opposite a middle-aged woman who gives him a book, evidently designed to teach the men the Herlandian language and for the men to teach the women English.

Over the next few weeks, Jeff, Van, and Terry are given daily lessons by the women who gave them their books. These women—Somel, Moadine, and Zava—are tutors who also teach the men Herlandian history, religion, and culture. The tutors also ask the men to teach them about the world outside of Herland. After several weeks, however, Terry becomes restless and insists on trying to escape. One night, the men make a long rope out of their clothes and bedsheets and use it to escape out of their window and over the garden wall below. After traveling through the country by night and sleeping by day for several days, the men find their plane. However, it has been covered by a tough cloth that they can’t cut through without knives. Suddenly, Alima, Celis, and Ellador appear a short distance away, giggling while they watch the men try to tear the cloth. Having learned some of the Herlandian language, Van and Terry try to get the women to give them a knife so they can fly their plane away. Alima, Celis, and Ellador refuse and run away when the men desperately lunge at them to steal their knives. The Colonels appear and take the men back to the fortress. The men are surprised that they are not punished for running away, but rather treated like truant children. Their tutors explain that if the men learn the language and promise not to hurt anyone, they will be allowed to go around the country and meet everyone. With this in mind, the men rededicate themselves to their lessons.

In bits and pieces, Van, Jeff, and Terry learn that there have been no men in Herland in over 2,000 years. Before that, the country had a lot of men, an army, a king, and access to the sea. However, wars, a volcanic eruption that cut the country off from the rest of the world, and a slave uprising led to the deaths of all the men in the country, leaving the women stranded and forced to rebuild the cities themselves. After 10 years of rebuilding and cultivating the land, one woman mysteriously became pregnant. She had one daughter and then, over the years, four more daughters. These girls were raised and loved by the whole community. When the girls grew up, each of them also had five daughters. This pattern continued for the next 2,000 years. Motherhood became a sacred calling and every woman looked forward to giving birth, which also motivated the women to make improvements to their society that would last from one generation to the next. However, they soon realized that they would have to limit population growth or else there would be too many people to feed. Having cultivated every available inch of their land, the ancient Herlandians decided that the country could support about three million people, which meant each woman could only have one child from then on (although some women, called Over Mothers, were given special permission to have a second child). The Herlandians learn to prevent pregnancies by focusing their physical and mental energy on work as soon as they begin experiencing the feeling of exultation that indicates their body is trying to create a child. When a child is born, the entire community comes together to educate and care for her. This process of reproduction is called parthenogenesis (or “virgin birth”) and only results in daughters, never sons. The women establish a religion based on motherhood and make a continuous conscious effort to improve their society to ensure its sustainability for centuries to come.

In exchange for information about Herland, Jeff, Van, and Terry tell their tutors about life in the rest of the world, especially America. The women always take notes and, as the men find out later, they also keep charts about topics the men avoid talking about. The men frequently find themselves embarrassed to share certain details of social conditions in America because they are frequently inferior to conditions in Herland, where wars, poverty, and disease have been eliminated. The condition of American women is particularly interesting to Somel, Zava, and Moadine, especially as the men reveal that women are kept in the home and expected to raise children while men do all of the public work. Soon, Jeff, Terry, and Van are invited to travel across the country and give lectures about world history and culture to classes of girls and young women.

During their tour of the country, Jeff, Van, and Terry again meet Celis, Alima, and Ellador. Friendship between them soon turns to courtship: Jeff worships Celis, Terry fall madly in love with Alima (although the two of them frequently argue), and Van’s friendship with Ellador slowly ripens into deep romantic love. Courting Herlandian women, however, proves to be a struggle—there are no gender roles to dictate behavior and the women themselves have never experienced sexual attraction and struggle to understand why the men do. Eventually, the three couples get married, but marriage proves even more difficult than courtship. Ellador doesn’t understand Van’s desire to have sex, saying that she can only do it if she feels like it is useful, namely when they are consciously creating a child. Van is initially annoyed by this but agrees to wait until she’s ready. Celis and Jeff, however, do have sex and Celis becomes the first woman of Herland to become pregnant by a man in 2,000 years. Terry becomes enraged with Alima because she refuses to start a sexual relationship with him. One night, he hides in her room and attempts to rape her, believing that if he does then she will become submissive to his desires. However, Alima fights back and calls for help, Terry is taken prisoner, and the women decide Terry must leave Herland forever. Van and Ellador decide to return to America with Terry so that Ellador can explore the outside world. All three of them promise not to reveal the location of Herland until (and if) Ellador returns with a thorough report of life outside their peaceful country.