Constructing Feminist Knowledge through Dialogue: A Socratic Reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland

Written during a period when patriarchal restrictions on women were prevalent, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novel Herland, first serialized in 1915 and republished in book form in 1979, presents a critical counter-discourse to existing gender norms by imagining a two-thousand-year-old, all-female society distinguished by its advanced culture. Although there is no evidence indicating that Gilman used the Socratic Method in her utopian novel, the dialogical interactions between the male explorers and the women on Herland island, and the message the author ultimately intends to convey, are reminiscent of the methodology used in the Socratic Method. In this context, the method of this study is a qualitative textual analysis based on the Socratic Method in this novel, and the instructive strategies Gilman used to organize the research, refute assumptions, and encourage internal reflection constitute the content of the analysis. The primary aim of this study is to analyse how and why Gilman uses the Socratic Method, both as a narrative technique and a teaching tactic, presenting herself as a didactic guide aimed at developing critical awareness of gender inequality in her readers. The results show that in Herland, the question-and-answer dialogues between male and female characters serve as a tool to highlight the differences between patriarchal American society and the matriarchal society of Herland. Through these conversations, Gilman invites readers to critically consider the structural basis of women’s subjugation and encourages a reassessment of gender roles in modern society.