An Ironic Author

The story Herland is written from the point of view of Vandyck Jennings, one of three young men to crash land in a nation full of women. As Jennings reveals characteristics of the land and describes the strong, capable, and solely female presence that exists there, one reading would most likely believe the author is either Jennings himself or some other male who would see a land of females in such way. But as the story continues, Jennings point of view, especially in comparison to those of Terry Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, becomes extremely understanding of such a maternal and feminine way of life. After reading about the far too manly Terry and the far too kind Jeff, one realizes that Jennings himself is much to perfect of a man. Jennings describes himself through his words and the actions he takes as almost a female himself. In fact his tutor mentions the funny fact to him after his first interaction with a large group of inhabitants in the land as a somewhat "teacher" of world history.

These traits that Jennings possesses and the way in which he is able to grasp exactly what the women in the land believe and accept can be better understood by readers when you look at the front cover of the book. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a woman. After realizing the gender of the author the irony behind the story and the greater message Gilman is trying to get across becomes much clearer. Jennings is in fact a woman, of course not physically in appearance to his friends, but in mind he is due to his creator as a character. Gilman uses Jennings to show the medium between two strong, polar opposite personalties of males. Jennings goes on to receive the best acceptance in return from the women, becoming very popular and succeeding in a relationship with Ellador. Therefore, with Gilman using Jennings's character and his frequent successes to reveal her own thoughts and self, she portrays what she believes are the right choices and actions a man should take in society.

Women with Men

From the start of the 19th century, women in America (as well as all over the world) have struggled with their status in society in comparison to men. The issue of women's rights still exists today on a different scale through new and fitting issues. Women are often seen as inferior, which leads the opposite sex to treat them either with carelessness, unfairness, or as if they are dainty and breakable. Most prominently seen during the second great awakening, the women's suffrage movement, and again in the 1980s and 1990s, women have spoken out about the rights they believe they deserve. in most cases the rights women wish for are already available for men. For whatever reason, society and unfortunately males seem to think that women want to be treated differently for reasons such as maternity, protection, or in order to be more presentable as a lady. Women in the early 20th century would be scoffed at if they chose to act like a man or present any "male" qualities. Gender and sexuality norms were extremely common during that period, as they are today for different reasons, and any time those normalcies were pushed or stretched society would freak out. 

In Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the three men who arrive in a land populated solely by females find themselves appalled due to their being accustomed to such normalcies, since they were traveling from America themselves. For different reasons, depending on personality, each man in the story finds himself treating the strong, confident, intelligent, and capable women around them the way they would a women at home in America. The only problem is that in a land where a male presence is unknown and no gender norms exist, the women refuse to receive such treatment and indirectly treat the men that women do not need to be treated differently for any reasons. 

Terry, the most self-centered and cocky of the three men, presents the stereotypical yet truthful type of male who simply believes himself to be superior to the female due to his brutish strength and her daintiness. His treatment of Alima with such qualities leads to countless problems. Jeff, who most often has good intentions presents the type of male who unconsciously insults women by worrying over them and trying to protect them. Jeff tells Celis that she should not carry a light and simple basket because a lady shouldn't have to, a man would rather do it for her. Though the reasoning seems polite and kind, Celis explains that women are proud of their abilities and do not need men to enhance them in any way. Therefore through the difficulties in interactions between the male and female characters of Herland, Gilman gives her explanation for women's want for equality throughout history. 

Finding Differences

In Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, three men find themselves in a land full only females. Such a large difference leads them to look for and learn about as much as possible, involving the comparisons and contrasts between their home country of America and their new surroundings of Herland. The complete lack of males is the most obvious contrast that provides the protagonists with the most confusing problems. The men are so accustomed to their life and culture in America, where at the time women were very much inferior to men, that they find themselves loathing the land while also envying the culture within it. The men struggle to understand that women could create and maintain a society all on their own, and do so incredibly well. The search for flaws and though they cannot find any, they do find themselves frustrated with certain customs and actions they are forced to follow or agree to.
As I am writing this blog I am in Madrid, Spain. I am on an exchange trip that I imagined to be a relaxing and unbelievably fun vacation. I knew that I would have to think and experience the spanish culture and language but now that I´m here I have been confronted with so much more. The culture shock was enormous for me as well as everyone, and not only being in a different country during the day but living with a family that finds everything new for you to be normal can really mess with your head. I can relate to the men in Herland so easily because the Spanish lifestyle, even for someone my exact age, is so very different and in a lot of ways different negatively. For the majority of this trip I have been extremely homesick, just as the men in the book would start to feel when they had to deal with things that were very new. I have enjoyed the trips with my classmates and experiencing the cities greatest treasures more than anything, but the home life and the way of communicating with poeple my age here has been rough. Having to adopt a family you do not know and cannot understand most of the time as your own, as well as on your own is very difficult. Therefore, while reading Herland during freetime her and brainstorming blog ideas this was the best I could think of. I actually feel as if I am one of the men landing in a foreign place that does almsot nothing the same. I know that when I leave Spain I will have an abundance of memories and will never regret my decision to come here, but I will be so glad to be home.

Herland

In Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, three male characters define masculinity and a man's perspective of the world, females, and himself. Two of the men, Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, represent the two extremes of the male personality. They are polar opposites and their actions throughout the tale display such opposition. Terry epitomizes the proud, brutish, and sometimes selfish side of man who may have too much courage and too little belief. When it comes to an army of women and land full of nothing but females, Terry at first seems pleased. Terry's reaction to the idea of such a large amount of femininity and what he believed would be (as he put it later) womanliness, displays the males view of women as their to earn and keep due to a strong attraction they assume women will return. Terry soon becomes unimpressed and rude to these women however when he decides that none of them meet his standards, standards many men seem to have. From them on Terry refuses to cooperator accept anything that the women present him and his fellow explorers with, constantly searching for an escape or a method of defeating these women. Terry boasts of his manly strength and believes he can overcome any woman simply because she is a female.Gilman portrays this negative side of men which females tend to see through the decisions and comments Terry makes throughout the story.

Jeff Margrave is portrayed throughout Herland as the soft, understanding, and intelligent side of man. Jeff begins the journey with his colleagues as a follower. He has vast knowledge of ecological science and interests in a number of the natural elements the men find along the way. Jeff's issue is his quiet nature and submission to Terry at the start of the story. Jeff follows Terry's orders to try and fight off the women that Jeff believed were kind and innocent. Jeff does not let his own ideas and choices come through. This is somewhat peer pressure, and it is a characteristic of men that Gilman is trying to explain through Jeff. Later in the story however, Jeff begins to speak his mind as he realizes that Terry cannot do anything to him if he disagrees with him. When the men are teaching their Herland native tutors about the world outside of their home Jeff tells the tutors the harsh truth about male and female relationships with each other and with the world, even though Terry always tries to defend men. Jeff finally allows his true feelings to be known to those around him and blocks the "brutish" influence of Terry. Gilman presents an extreme contrast of the self-centered, thug-like man through Jeff and his gradual acceptance of himself and his ideas.

The Snake

I believe that both the poem, "The Snake", and the image of the actual snake both fit into the category of American Literature known Transcendentalism, while the poem seems to show the snake in a romantic way and the image in a realistic manner. In the poem, the author describes the snake in a fairly detailed manner, almost showing its thoughts and emotions through its position and its actions. The attention to detail the writer shows is a trait of romantic writing and the attempt I feel the writer is trying to make to reveal the snakes emotions is also a common trait of romanticism.

The traits of Transcendentalism are evident however not only in the fact that the poem is written about an animal, a part of nature, and its natural actions of life, but also in the way that the writer mentions wanting to be like the snake. The last three lines of the poem,

"I longed to be that thing.

The pure, sensuous form.

And I may be, some time."

reveal the writers reason for describing and attempting to understand the snake in such a detailed way, and that is due to his desire to become calm and refined like the snake. Transcendental writers and thinkers were invested in nature and wished to understand it, connect with it, and become one with it. The image of the snake has less evidence of transcendentalism, as it is only an image of nature and the snake in its natural stance, but that is still relevant and can connect the two works. 

The image of the snake however seems to present realistic ideas to me due not only to the background and natural habitat of the image, but the stance and solidness of the snake. The image seems to be saying that this is the snake, this is what is does, there is no backstory. Everything seems simple and yet, realistic. The writer of the poem looks at the snake from a different perspective and tries to see so much more, but the image seems to just look at it on the surface and take that to be the full extent of what is there. 

Depression after Modernism

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway contains characters who all seem to be almost redeveloping their social skills, personalities, and confidence after the World War that had taken place right before the plot begins in America. Large events in American history influence the changes and development of literature in America and the first World War was one event that was particularly damaging. The ideas present in literature became much more somber and complex, making the effects of the war evident. American authors had been impacted by the war and their writing, the style, characters, plot, setting, and overall methods of writing had changed creating a writing period of depression in American literature.

Modernism is the period that these changes were most easily seen in as the period started following the war. I studied the Modernism period in English at the start of the semester and with that research now present in my mind I am able to notice characteristics of modernist writing in the literature we read inside class and outside of class. When reading Hemingway's book, not only the style and techniques used in his writing are obviously modern, but the characters feelings and struggles with their own view of themselves and self-confidence are examples of the depression they were involved in following the war they had fought in before the book began. This connection was interesting for me to understand and helped me to realize what the Hemingway was trying to express through his characters personalities and actions.

Do We Have To Be "American" to Be American?

A question brought up quite often recently in English class due to our task of defining American Literature is, does an author have to be from America to be an American author and therefore qualify their literature as American Literature? I took this question and changed it to better my curiosity by asking, do the characters in a book have to be from America to qualify a book as American Literature, even if the author is American themselves? This question came up because in the book The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, all the characters are traveling or living in countries outside of America such as Paris, South America, Spain, Scotland, and Greece. The difference that is made in this storyline is that all the characters are united through their involvement in World War I, the majority of them having fought in the war for America. Even the female character Brett is involved through her work in the hospitals of the war and other characters are friends of war veterans. The setting of the book however is not America and the characters are obviously expatriates. Therefore, can the book still be categorized as an American piece of literature or do the characters and plot of the story have nothing to do with the book's qualification in such a category?

I believe that the author's own status as American is a large factor. The author himself being from America and having knowledge about World War I and its effects evident in the characters who are said to have been present shown through his descriptions of them contribute to the books American genre. I also think that the since the main characters in The Sun Also Rises were all united by the same conflict in America, their efforts in World War I, that even if they're lives take them elsewhere in the world they have the American background and the American identities that are needed. Therefore I do think that we have the characters had to be American in order for the book to be a piece of American literature, but they do not have to spend their entire lives in America as long as they know where they came from and that background affects them and is evident in their actions and beliefs wherever they do go.