Herland Post #2

          An obvious theme and topic of Herland is gender. The foundation of the book involves gender as the three friends are intrigued by the possibility of a civilization made up only of women. At one point, the three friends make an observation that the civilization that they saw contained roads that were apparently made by men. They made this assumption because they were skillfully built. This assumption shows an theme of American literature that we have been seeing lately: men's superiority to women.

          We have seen this theme in a few of the pieces that we have looked at this year. One of these pieces includes the play A Raisin in the Sun. We can see this theme in this play when Walter Lee is criticizing and blaming his sister Beneatha of being condescending and thinking she is better than everyone else just because she is going to college. Walter, as a man and father, feels that he should be the one who is the most qualified, intelligent, educated, and simply superior to the women of the family. He wants to be the one who takes care of business and the one who is looked up to the most.