Subversion of The Hegemonic Discourse in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Literary Utopia, Herland

Abstract

Categories are social constructs that promote a binary approach, creating strict dichotomies. Such classifications play an instrumental role in social inclusion and exclusion as well as implementing oppressive practices, as they are so deeply embedded in our cultural assumptions about gender, race, physical attributes, sexual orientation, and social status. These assumptions and the intersections of those axes do matter in our approach to identity and various social groups. However, under the strong influence of postmodernism that challenges and disrupts dualistic thinking, it has become necessary to deconstruct these binary oppositions in order to enable the formation of a social order free from gender inequality and other aspects of oppression. Exposing the fabricated nature of socially-constructed categories and dualistic thinking through deconstruction in this regard can demonstrate the need to see multiple possibilities and alternatives rather than fixed taxonomies. Utopian narratives can be useful and functional in offering such a realm with its generic characteristics, as utopia is interested in alternatives and the search for an ideal social order. Utopian narratives may envision alternative social orders that can challenge such ingrained attitudes towards gender, race, ethnicity and other axes, as the desire for “a better, ideal world” plays a central role. In this respect, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novel, Herland (1915) subverts the hegemonic discourse and deeply embedded assumptions about gender, femininity and power relations by presenting an alternative utopian world order run solely by women. The aim of this presentation is therefore to discuss Gilman’s Herland in terms of the representation of gender and power to demonstrate the need to dismantle binaries so that the formation of an ideal future may be possible.