Herland Themes

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist utopia novel Herland follows three American men—Van (the narrator), Jeff, and Terry—in the early 1910s as they discover and learn about the legendary Herland, an ancient civilization made up entirely of women who have not seen any men or other outsiders in over 2,000 years. The three men learn of Herland from natives in a mysterious and largely unmapped country; these natives claim that there is a dangerous…

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland is about a utopian society entirely composed of women and girls. When three male explorers (Van, Terry, and Jeff) enter Herland and begin learning about the history of the Herlandian people, they learn that the women have existed without men for over 2,000 years. With thousands of years and dozens of generations standing between the women of Herland and experience with heterosexual relationships, the Herlandians have peacefully…

As a society full of women, Herland is also a society full of mothers. As Gilman explains in her novel Herland, Herlandian women reproduce through a process called parthenogenesis in which an ovum develops into a baby without being fertilized by a man’s sperm. Motherhood is considered sacred and giving birth is the most important part of any Herlandian woman’s life, although they are only allowed to reproduce once unless they receive special permission…