“Endowment of Motherhood”: Gilman’s Utopian Fiction

  • Ewa Barbara Luczak
Chapter
Part of the Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine book series (PLSM)

Abstract

Directed at creating a perfect woman-friendly state, Oilman’s reformist eugenic zeal found an even bigger outlet in three Utopian novels, Moving the Mountain (1911), Herland (1915) and With Her in Our Land (1916). Ideologically, the novels are in equal measure a socialist/feminist response to Utopian ideas of nationalism fashionable among liberal circles as well as eugenically inspired blueprint for a scientifically engineered society. They combine a fascination with the socialist ideas of nationalization of industry and property and insistence on the unavoidability of restructuring of society along feminist lines with belief in the power of eugenics to solve demographic problems. The novels also demonstrate the direction of the growth of Gilman’s reformist project. With her Utopian narratives, the writer moves away from the practical everyday issues of female economic and marital choices to discuss systematic Utopian and eugenic solutions for the whole society. In this way, Gilman gradually abandons the everyday and the local in favor of the general and the abstract.

Keywords

Good People Human Waste Natural Birth Control Mother Goddess Marital Choice 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

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© Ewa Barbara Luczak 2015

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