Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  As a matter of fact, there was really nothing to prevent it, nothing I might leave behind which would cost me the pain her exile was costing her; and especially nothing which could compensate for losing my wife.

  We began to discuss it, with eager interest. “I don’t mean to forsake this poor world,” she assured me. “We can come back again — later, much later. My mind is full of great things that can be done here, and I want to get all the wisdom of Herland at work to help. But let us go back now, while we are young, and before this black, stupid confusion has — has hurt me any worse. Perhaps it is no harm, that I have suffered so. Perhaps our child will have a heart that aches for all the world — and will do more than any of us to help it. Especially if it is — a Boy.”

  “Do you want a boy, darling?”

  “Oh, do I not! just think — none of us, ever, in these two thousand years, has had one. If we, in Herland, can begin a new kind of men!” ...

  “What do you want of them?” I said, teasingly. “Surely you women alone have accomplished all that the world needs, haven’t you?”

  “Indeed, no, Van. We haven’t begun. Ours is only a — a sample: a little bit of a local exhibit. If what we have done is the right thing, then it becomes our clearest duty to spread it to all the world. Such a new life as you have opened to us, Van, you Splendid Man!”

  “Splendid Man! Splendid! I thought you thought we were to blame for all the misery in the world? Just look at the harm we’ve done!”

  “Just look at the good you’ve done, too! Why, my darling, the harm you have done is merely the result of your misunderstanding and misuse of Sex; and the good you have done is the result of the humanness of you, the big, noble humanness that has grown and grown, that has built and lifted and taught the world in spite of all the dragging evil. Why, dear, when I see the courage, the perseverance, the persistent growth you men have shown, cumbered as you have been from the beginning by the fruits of your mistakes, it seems as if you were almost more than human.”

  I was rather stunned by this. No man who had seen Herland and then come back to our tangled foolishness, waste and pain, could be proud of his man-made world. No man who had solidly grasped the biological facts as to the initial use of his sex, and his incredible misuse of it, could help the further shame for the anomalous position of the human male, completely mistaken, and producing a constant train of evils.

  I could see it all plainly enough. And now, to have her talk like this!

  “Remember, dear, that men never meant to do it, or any part of it,” she tenderly explained. “The trouble evidently began when nobody knew much; it became an ironclad ‘custom’ even before religion took it up, and law. Remember, too, that the women haven’t died — they are here yet, in equal numbers. Also, even the unjust restrictions have saved them from a great deal of suffering which the men met. And then nothing could rob them of their inheritance. Every step the men really made upward lifted the women, too. And don’t forget Love, ever. That has lived and triumphed even through all the lust and slavery and shame.”

  I felt comforted, relieved.

  “Besides,” she went on, “you men ought to feel proud of the real world work you have done, even crippled as you were by your own excessive sex, and by those poor, dragging dead-weights of women you had manufactured. In spite of it all, you have invented and discovered and built and adorned the world. You have things as far along as we have, even some things better, and many sciences and crafts we know nothing about. And you’ve done it alone — just men! It’s wonderful.”

  In spite of all the kindness and honest recognition she showed, I could not help a feeling of inner resentment at this tone. Of course, we three men had been constantly impressed with all that they had done in Herland — just women, alone — but that she thought it equally wonderful for men to do it was not wholly gratifying.

  She went on serenely.

  “We had such advantages, you see. Being women, we had all the constructive and organizing tendencies of motherhood to urge us on and, having no men, we missed all that greediness and quarreling your history is so sadly full of. Also, being isolated, we could just grow — like a sequoia in a sheltered mountain glade.

  “But you men, in this mixed, big world of yours, in horrid confusion, of mind and long ignorance, with all those awful religions to mix you up and hold you back, and with so little real Happiness — still, you have built the world! Van, dear, it shows how much stronger humanity is than sex, even in men. All that I have had to learn, you see, for we make no distinction at home — women are people, and people are women.

  “At first I thought of men just as males — a Herlander would, you know. Now I know that men are people, too, just as much as women are; and it is as one person to another that I feel this big love for you, Van. You are so nice to live with. You are such good company. I never get tired of you. I like to play with you, and to work with you. I admire and enjoy the way you do things. And when we sit down quietly, near together — it makes me so happy, Van!”

  * * * * *

  There were still a few big rubies in that once fat little bag she so wisely brought with her. We made careful plans, which included my taking a set of thorough lessons in aviation and mechanics; there must be no accidents on this trip. By a previous steamer we sent the well-fitted motorboat that should carry us and our dissembled aeroplane up that long river.

  Of baggage, little could be carried, and that little, on Ellador’s part, consisted largely of her mass of notes, all most carefully compressed, and done on the finest and lightest paper. She also urged that we take with us the lightest and newest of encyclopaedias. “We can leave it in the boat, if necessary, and make a separate trip,” she suggested. Also photographs she took, and a moving picture outfit with well-selected films. “We can make them, I’m sure,” she said; “but this one will do to illustrate.” It did.

  After all, her requirements did not weigh more than the third passenger whom we might have carried.

  The river trip was a growing joy; day after day of swift gliding through those dark, drooping forests and wide, reedy flats; and when at last we shot out upon the shining silver of that hidden lake, and she saw above her the heights of Herland — my calm goddess trembled and cried, stretching her arms to it like a child to its mother.

  But we set swiftly to work on our aeroplane, putting it all soundly together and fastening in the baggage, and then sealed up the tight sheathed boat like a trim cocoon.

  Then the purr of our propeller, the long, skating slide on the water, and up — and up — in a widening spiral, Ellador breathless, holding fast to the supports, till we topped the rocky rim, rose above the forest, her forest — and sailed out over the serene expanse of that fair land.

  “O, let’s look,” she begged; “let’s look at the whole of it first — it’s the whole of it that I love!” So we swept in a great circle above, as one might sweep over Holland: the green fields, blossoming gardens, and dark woods, spread like a model of heaven below us, and the cities, the villages — how well I remembered them, in their scattered loveliness, rich in color, beautiful in design, everywhere fringed and shaded by clean trees, lit and cheered by bright water, radiant with flowers.

  She leaned forward like a young mother over her sleeping child, tender, proud, gloating.

  “No smoke!” she murmured; “no brutal noise, no wickedness, no disease. Almost no accidents or sickness — almost none.” (This in a whisper, as if she were apologizing for some faint blemish on the child.)

  “Beauty!” she breathed. “Beauty! Beauty! — everywhere. Oh, I had forgotten how beautiful it was!”

  So had I. When I first saw it I was still too accustomed to our common ugliness to really appreciate this loveliness.

  When we had swung back to the town where we had lived most, and made our smooth descent in a daisied meadow, there were many to meet us, with my well-remembered Somel, and, first and most eager, Jeff and Celis, with their baby.

  Ellado
r seized upon it as eagerly as her gentle tenderness would allow, with reverent kisses for the little hands, the rosy feet. She caught Celis to her arms and held her close. She even kissed Jeff, which he apparently liked, and nobody else minded. And then — well, if you live in a country of about three million inhabitants, and love them all; if you have been an envoy extraordinary — very extraordinary, indeed — to a far-off, unknown world, and have come back unexpectedly — why, your hands are pretty full for a while.

  * * * * *

  We settled back into the smooth-running Herland life without a ripple. No trouble about housing; they had always a certain percentage of vacancies, to allow for freedom of movement. No trouble about clothes; those perfect garments were to be had everywhere, always lovely and suitable. No trouble about food; that smooth, well-adjusted food supply was available wherever we went.

  No appeals for deserving charity — no need of them. Nothing to annoy and depress, everything to give comfort and strength; and under all, more perceptible to me now than before, that vast, steady, onmoving current of definite purpose, planning and working to make good better and better best.

  The “atmosphere” in the world behind us is that of a thousand mixed currents, pushing and pulling in every direction, controverting and opposing one another.

  Here was peace — and power, with accomplishment.

  Eagerly she returned to her people. With passionate enthusiasm she poured out, in wide tours of lecturing, and in print, her report of world conditions. She saw it taken up, studied, discussed by those great-minded over-mothers of the land. She saw the young women, earnest eyed, of boundless hope and high purpose, planning, as eager missionaries plan, what they could do to spread to all the world their proven gains. Reprints of that encyclopedia were scattered to every corner of the land, and read swiftly, eagerly, to crowding groups of listeners. There began to stir in Herland a new spirit, pushing, seeking, a new sense of responsibility, a larger duty.

  “It is not enough,” they said, “that we should be so happy. Here is the whole round world — millions and hundreds of millions of people — and all their babies! Not in a thousand years will we rest, till the world is happy!”

  And to this end they began to plan, slowly, wisely, calmly, making no haste; sure, above all, that they must preserve their own integrity and peace if they were to help others.

  * * * * *

  When Ellador had done her utmost, given all that she had gathered and seen the great work growing, she turned to me with a long, happy sigh.

  “Let’s go to the forest,” she said. And we went.

  We went to the rock where I had first landed and she showed me where three laughing girls had been hidden. We went to the tree where they had slipped away like quicksilver. We went to a far-off, quiet place she knew, a place of huge trees, heavy with good fruit, of smooth, mossy banks, of quiet pools and tinkling fountains. Here, unexpected, was a little forester house, still and clean, with tall flowers looking in at the windows.

  “I used to love this best of all,” she said. “Look — you can see both ways.”

  It was on a high knoll and, through the great boughs, a long vista opened to a bright sunlight in the fields below.

  The other side was a surprise. The land dropped suddenly, fell to a rocky brink and ended. Dark and mysterious, far beyond, in a horizon-sweeping gloom of crowding jungle, lay — the world.

  “I always wanted to see — to know — to help,” she said. “Dear — you have brought me so much! Not only love, but the great new spread of life — of work to do for all humanity.

  “And then — the other new Hope, too, — perhaps — perhaps — a son!”

  And in due time a son was born to us.

  THE END

  The Shorter Fiction

  Gilman attended the Rhode Island School of Design

  THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

  The Yellow Wallpaper was first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is a six thousand word short story, now regarded as an important nineteenth century feminist text. The work is by far Gilman’s most famous piece of writing and has elicited a multitude of interpretations and scholarly critiques. The author was inspired to write the tale by her own experiences with depression and the medical treatment she had received. Gilman wished the text to serve as a warning to physicians about the damage done by ‘rest cures’ inflicted on women, preventing them from engaging in any physical or mental activities, including, in Gilman’s case, the possibility of writing. The Yellow Wallpaper details the narrator’s increasingly fragile psychological state, leading to a mental breakdown. The woman has been prescribed the ‘rest cure’ after giving birth to her child and therefore her husband takes her to a large country house for the summer, where she is told she must take to her bed and is forbidden any physical, social and mental stimuli. The narrator becomes slowly more fixated on the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and the idea that a woman is trapped within it and that it is her duty to release the prisoner.

  The short story has been open to an array of different critical interpretations, one of which focuses on the patriarchal nature of the medical profession often seeking to silence women. The narrator’s opinion on her health and the methods to assist her improvements are disregarded as she falls prey to misogynistic notions about women’s irrationality. The Yellow Wallpaper can be understand as part of the much debated feminist issue of whether madness could or should be viewed as liberating and if the narrator stepping over her husband at the conclusion of the text can be interpreted as a victory over him and the oppressive patriarchal culture. Gilman also raises interesting questions about the link between writing, power and language and how in an androcentric society these intersect to deny women a voice.

  THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

  It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

  A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity — but that would be asking too much of fate!

  Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

  Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

  John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

  John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

  John is a physician, and PERHAPS — (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) — PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.

  You see he does not believe I am sick!

  And what can one do?

  If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency — what is one to do?

  My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

  So I take phosphates or phosphites — whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

  Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

  Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

  But what is one to do?

  I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES exhaust me a good deal — having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

  I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus — but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

  So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

  The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that yo
u read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

  There is a DELICIOUS garden! I never saw such a garden — large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

  There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

  There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

  That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care — there is something strange about the house — I can feel it.

  I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a DRAUGHT, and shut the window.

  I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

  But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself — before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.

  I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.

  He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.

  He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

  I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.

  He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,” said he, “and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.” So we took the nursery at the top of the house.

  It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.