There's a Reason Why It's Not Called *Myland*

     I have to admit, I am pretty disappointed with Herland. While I expected the classic Amazon, shining warrior-woman society, we read about a society of female philosophers and scientists. And to be totally truthful, some of those women weren't even good philosophers.

      I should probably stop now and remind all of you that I'm not a sexist (at least, I wasn't the last time I checked).

I think my biggest problem with Herland is that it's so BORING!

 I don't often encounter a book that makes me long for its ending or my death (whichever comes first), but sometimes there is that one...

      For me, Herland is also too perfect. It seems like Charolotte Perkins Gilman tries to create a sort of heaven-on-earth scenario with a wholly female society. This whole heaven-on-earth idea has been done before, except Gilman tries a different strategy than the others: she doesn't change the inhabitants for the better in order to fit the society (although she does change them).

      Let's examine the classic example of a heaven-on-earth scenario: the idea of “New Heaven” and “New Earth” from the book of Revelation. There's not a whole lot of detail given in the description of New Heaven, but in what little is given a massive shining city of gold, gems, perfect people, and a perfect God is revealed. There's no description of what the details of society will look like, so a lot is left to speculation.

      What will people do for eternity? Won't they get bored eventually? Those are valid questions, but elsewhere scripture reveals that the inhabitants of New Heaven will be both physically and spiritually changed to be perfect. Only the good emotions shall remain, pain shall be gone, eternal joy shall abound, etc. In other words, the people change to resemble more perfectly the flawless society in which they live, so it is quite possible they will not become bored.

      Herland, however, doesn't do that. The women are different from regular women in that they have lost most of their emotion. How, then, can their “perfect utopian society” exist without an abundance of the good emotions? Without an abundance of such goodness, their society really doesn't seem utopian at all.

(Image of the dreadfully bored fellow courtesy of google.com.)