Very Different Story

Almost all Gilman’s work asserts optimistically the possibility for utopian change, yet ironically she is probably most widely celebrated for her darkly tragic story The Yellow Wallpaper. The focus of this essay collection is Gilman’s utopianism. Her best-known and critically addressed novel is Herland, and several contributors revisit it in order to deepen our understanding of the complexity of Gilman’s utopian vision. The lesser-known Moving the Mountain – deserving of more attention than it has received – is the subject of a full essay, and other essays explore utopian ideas in Gilman’s short stories.