Herland Chapter 3 Summary

The chapter of Herland I decided to do the discussion question on is Chapter 3 “A Peculiar Imprisonment”. The basic reading of the chapter demonstrates a group of three men waking up in a room from a deep sleep. The issue that the group of men struggles with is they cannot find any of their possessions (clothes), the women took away all of the men’s possessions and the men do not know if they will ever get them back. The men find a large bathroom full of the property necessities to take care of oneself, but the men also find a huge closet full of clothes, that were not theirs. The chapter continues to discuss the group of three men arguing about the treatment they are receiving from the women. The men argue based on the women, Van believes that the women are harmless because they chose not to harm the men, but Terry

For a very long period of time, women were considered the property to men, first starting as their father’s property and eventually being their husbands. This chapter flipped the social norm of domesticity onto the men, and the men were rightfully upset about it. I think with the book being released in 1915, it called for a social change. Men do not like being treated less than equal and put down by women, and I think this chapter called the social norm out to be changed. “Terry was grinning at us. “So you realize what these ladies have done to us?” he pleasantly inquired. “They have taken away all our possessions, all our clothes-every stitch. We have been stripped and washed and put to bed like so many yearling babies- by these highly civilized women.”” (Gilman 22). I think symbolizes a Utopia because Gilman is writing about a world she wishes was real. A world where women were their own and not the property of men. I think this idea stemmed from the lifestyle and societal norms she grew up with, and she wanted to make a change or at least imagine