Reviews

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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linwin's review

3.0

Rating it 3 stars because of the historical context. As a reading experience on it’s own it would probably be a 1-star for me. The style reminds me of HG wells and is more of an account almost from the outside and leaves little room to connect to the characters. It’s a very quick and easy read and the language is simple and straight to the point. Not the type of style that I would normally enjoy, but it only took a couple hours anyway.

This is certainly a very interesting and worthwhile read if you keep in mind how long ago it was published and how controversial and unique discussions on gender in this way were at that time. It was very fascinating to read the authors thoughts on how a society could look like without men and get some real discussion between the characters on femininity and masculinity and challenging of norms. The ideas still feel dated in a lot of aspects, but that is to be expected and I was surprised a few times by how modern some of the discussions were.

esk913's review

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

kikisl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.25

sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

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3.0

It is interesting how many people have had problem with importance given to motherhood in Herland. Gillman had to give some kind of emotive power to citizens of Herland that led them to work together. And we take similar idea in patriarchies for granted (how many wars, how much of wealth accumulation has been done by kings and other men for their sons and children?). Individuals may have better motivations but society as a whole still only thinks of its future generations (in fact, most parents both male and female make sacrifices for their children). You can't pretend to imagine a dystopian or utopian society without talking about parent-children relations in it. Check out any classic in genre and you will see I'm right.

Herland suffers from same problems as other conceptions utopias - there is a lack of individualism in it. Anything not directly beneficial to society should be destroyed. This involves many other innocent species beside men and dogs. Women in Herland dont even control how many children they will have. Utopian societies are always tyrannical. They offer happiness in exchange of choice to be miserable. And wherever individuality is retained, there the utopia becomes fallible. In Herland, there is some individuality maintained in regard to choice of work but that should raise a problem which could destroy the utopia - what if more and more citizens of Herland show interest in some fields such as research for example, and less and less interest in some other necessary field, such as farming?