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Home How the Socialist Ideology in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and With Her in Ourland Obscures...

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How the Socialist Ideology in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and With Her in Ourland Obscures the Principles of Feminism and Eugenics Subverts the Principles of Socialism

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Identifier	Thesis 1764
Author	Krompinger, Tara
Title	How the Socialist Ideology in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and With Her in Ourland Obscures the Principles of Feminism and Eugenics Subverts the Principles of Socialism
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2004
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	Charlotte Perkins Gilman's reputation as a prominent feminist was resurrected during the second wave of feminism during the 1970's. However, upon close examination of her two feminist novels, Herland and With Her in Ourland, it becomes clear that she cannot be seen as a feminist. In Herland, Gilman creates a society where the only inhabitants are women, and she presents it as a world society far superior to our own. As radical as this novel may seem, it is obvious that it is a novel intent on presenting the amazing strides of the women's rights movement, the legislations that were passed because of these devoted women, and the way that these reforms could be the beginning of a great new era. The principles that drive the women of Herland are the very same concepts that were driving women during the progressive era in the United States. Gilman astutely realized that these concepts work in a utopian society, but she had to offer a viable method to accomplish these goals in the United States if she wished her novels to be taken seriously. Gilman attempts to answer this question in her sequel, With Her in Ourland. Through this novel, Gilman offers a social commentary on the problems that exist in the major countries of the world. She asserts the power of socialism and its proponents; it is not until the very last chapter that she even touches upon the question of women and their roles in American society. In these novels, Gilman demonstrates the practical application of the socialist principles that were included in Women and Economics and, in doing so, counteracts all of the feminist principles that she set forth in Herland and With Her in Ourland. I explore both of these books through a critical feminist approach, to demonstrate how these texts should not be seen as feminist because of the predominance of the socialist principles that obscure the principles of feminism. The pure conception of feminism is that women should receive the same opportunities as men. Under this definition, the quality of individualism reigns supreme. In socialism, the government strives to support the collective society, which, in turn, destroys the individual. Because of this, the concept of socialism destroys the concept of feminism. Along with a feminist perspective, I utilize the New Historicist approach and explore how Gilman was radical within the time period that she wrote and yet, was also writing as a reaction to many of the accomplishments that women were starting to make through the women's movement of the early twentieth century. The paper presents the historical background of the period in which these novels were written. From there, the focus moves to the feminist principles that exist in Herland. After these have been presented, I demonstrate the major socialist principles that permeate the text and describe the ways in which they make the feminist standpoint ambiguous. After the socialist principles of Herland have been established, the application of these principles, as seen through With Her in Ourland, is demonstrated. These principles are then contradicted by the principles of eugenics that she presents in this sequel.
Subject	Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935 -- Criticism and interpretation Socialism in literature Feminism in literature
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Dunne, Robert, 1964-
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	713733901
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Home How the Socialist Ideology in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and With Her in Ourland Obscures...

How the Socialist Ideology in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and With Her in Ourland Obscures the Principles of Feminism and Eugenics Subverts the Principles of Socialism

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