On The Masculine Archetypes in Herland
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote Herland as the recollected narration of a male sociologist. The narrator’s profession allows Gilman to present her vision of a feminist utopia from a generalist’s perspective, devoid of any of the difficulties of the details of life. Instead of showing us the life and habits of a single Herlander, the narrator lectures at great length about the history and culture of the species (and as women who experience parthenogenesis, the Herlanders are indeed a species all their own).
In a utopian tract, this lack of individuality among the inhabitants is to be expected, since utopian literature tends toward the examination of a totalitarian worldview (regardless of how benign such examples of totalitarianism may be), and it might be forgiven in Herland but for Gilman’s sorry use of archetypes to construct the individuals she does present, the three men whose adventure into Herland supports the novella’s narrative arc. While Gilman is aware of the archetypes, and nothing in the novella suggests that she ever intends her men to be anything other than archetypes (save for, perhaps, the narrator), their use weakens the verisimilitude of Herland, which is a shame, since it is a vision of utopia, and utopia needs all the verisimilitude it can get.
The three male archetypes utilized by Gilman are the hyper-masculine conqueror, the sensitive poet, and the rationalizing scientist. The first is personified by Terry Nicholson, a man “popular among women even when there were other men around” (6), but also a man who thought that “pretty women were just so much game and homely ones not worth considering” (8). Terry is the antagonist of the novella; his uncouth actions in the face of women who are not sexually attracted to him results in his attempting to rape a woman who is patient enough and atavistic enough to agree to become his wife, but who is not submissive enough to become his victim. It is an act for which the women of Herland banish him, and it splits the trio of men up for good, ending the novella’s narrative arc.
Jeff Margrave personifies the sensitive male. He is “born to be a poet, a botanist—or both” (1), a “tender soul” (6) who “idealized women in the best Southern style” (8), and who is “full of chivalry and sentiment and all that[;] a good boy [who] lived up to his ideals” (8). When Terry commits his blasphemy, Jeff is horrified, and when the women decide to banish Terry, Jeff elects to stay in Herland, surrounded by the women who “he approached as to a sacrament” (73).
The final archetype is personified by the narrator, Vandyck Jennings, a man who “was never popular,” but who had “girl friends, good ones, but they were friends—nothing else” (74). In the three men’s attitudes towards women, Vandyck holds “a middle ground, highly scientific, of course” (8). At the beginning of the novella, he accepts “the physiological limitations of the [female] sex” (8), but that notion is overturned soon after his arrival in Herland. This reversal may be pointed to as a development in his character, but the reversal is only accomplished through the overwhelming evidence that is the population of Herland, and as such, it is completely in tune with his personification of a “highly scientific” type. His departure from Herland at the end of the novella is inspired not solely by the brotherhood he feels toward Terry, but also by the opportunity it presents for his Herlander wife, who, on behalf of her people, desires to explore the wider world in the hopes of learning something new. Though no longer in Herland, Vandyck retains “the middle ground” by bringing a Herlander home with him.
Gilman’s use of archetypes serves the novella’s political purpose, which is to describe a community that any mother would wish for her daughter and wish for her daughter’s daughter, a community in which mothers and daughters are revered, and all are mothers and daughters, but their use decreases the merit of her writing. Utopian literature is most effective not when presenting utopia from an abstract perspective, not when laying out a plan that only thousands upon thousands of individuals could implement, but when it illustrates the personal moments that are necessary to make the utopia real. Perhaps the mistake that Gilman makes is not in inventing a utopian feminist society to describe, but in allowing a sociologist to describe it. Perhaps the work would be better off in the hands of a poet.