A Feminist Reading of Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Abstract

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one of the representative feminist writers in the United States. Her novel Herland constructs a utopian society for women and breaks binary opposition between men and women. This thesis analyzes from two different perspectives -- space and environment, and ideology in a woman-dominated country to reveal the ability of females’ deconstruction of dualism and reconstruction of equality rebuild between people and nature, and between men and women with subjectivity and agency of women. On the other hand, by comparing patriarchal ideology in reality and feministic thoughts in Herland, this thesis also aims to reveal the advancement in this feminist utopia, thus indicating the practical significance of the novel as a social criticism by creating a female dominated utopia to explore the ways to solve the various social problems in patriarchal United States.