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Looking Backward: From Herland to Gulliver's Travels

1983; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/saf.1983.0018

2158-5806

Elizabeth Lennox Keyser,

Political Economy and Marxism

LOOKING BACKWARD: FROM HERLAND TO GULLIVER'S TRAVELS Elizabeth Keyser* Most utopias are born of utopias, however pretentious the claims to complete novelty may be. Utopian fantasies are as book-ridden as philosophical arguments , dependent upon an eternal dialogue with forerunners.1 In Reinventing Womanhood Carolyn G. Heilbrun explains how literary works that purport to deal with "the nature of man" but in fact deal only with men can be reinterpreted so as to serve as models for women.2 Charlotte Perkins Gilman's feminist utopia, Herland, published in 1915, can be viewed as such a reinterpretation of Gulliver's Travek, especially of the Fourth Voyage. In Herland Gilman uses Swift's satire on human pride in general as a model for her attack on male pride in particular, offers an explanation for the Yahoo in human nature, and, finally, suggests how that Yahoo can be eradicated . The complete Gulliver's Travels and Herland, together with its sequel , With Her in Ourland (1916), share a common preoccupation or theme. When in Ourland Ellador, a native of Herland, visits the United States, she compares the country to Gulliver imprisoned by the Lilliputians: "Here you are, a democracy—free—the power in the hands of the people. You let that group of conservatives saddle you with a constitution which has so interfered with free action that you've forgotten you had it. In this ridiculous helplessness—like poor old Gulliver —bound by the Lilliputians—you have sat open-eyed, not moving a finger, and allowed individuals—mere private persons—to help themselves to the biggest, richest, best things in the country. . . . What can we think of a Democracy, a huge, strong, young Democracy , allowing itself to become infested with such parasites as these?"3 Like Swift, Gilman is concerned with the way in which people fail to recognize their own strength, allow themselves to be enslaved, and then pride themselves on their identification with the individuals and institutions that enslave them. In Herland, however, Gilman follows Swift even more closely to show how women in the early twentieth century are little more than beasts of burden, a theme she anticipates in 'Elizabeth L. Keyser teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has published essays on Hawthorne, Melville, and James and is currently working on a booklength study of Louisa May Alcott. 32Elizabeth Keyser Women and Economics (1899). There Gilman draws an analogy between the horse in captivity and women; they both work, but their exertions "bear no direct relation to [their] living."4 Both are dependent economically on the wills of their masters. She then goes on to compare women's work in the home and caring for children with the work of a horse; their labors enable men to produce more than would be otherwise possible—they are economic factors but not economically independent (p. 13). Like Gulliver and the economically oppressed citizens of a democracy, both horses and women, through a combination of their own servility and the tyranny of others, have become so "saddled " as to have forgotten their freedom. In Herland Gilman does with the sexes what Swift does with the reversal of stations and perspectives. In Herland the supposedly superior sex becomes the inferior or disadvantaged just as Gulliver in the first two voyages perceives himself first as the giant, then as the dwarf, and in the Fourth Voyage first as the higher, then as the lower animal.5 At the beginning of Herland three young male scientists hear rumors of a highly civilized country populated only by women. Van, a sociologist, is intellectually fascinated by the idea of a state administered by women. Jeff, a physician and botanist with a poetic temperament, finds the idea of a nation of women romantically appealing . And Terry, a geographer by training but a wealthy playboy in practice, imagines an unlimited opportunity for sexual conquest. On entering Herland, however, the three suddenly find themselves as powerless as Gulliver in Brobdingnag or Houyhnhnmland. Once convinced that they cannot escape, the men cooperate with their captors, master the language, and are eventually freed, though they remain under the supervision of three middle-aged mentors. Finally they are allowed to meet...