Moving the Mountain (novel)
Encyclopedia
Moving the Mountain is a feminist
utopian novel
written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
. It was published serially in Perkins Gilman's periodical The Forerunner
and then in book form, both in 1911
. The book was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The novel was also the first volume in Gilman's utopian trilogy; it was followed by the famous Herland
(1915) and its sequel, With Her in Ourland
(1916).
and the original Utopia
of Sir Thomas More
, along with Edward Bellamy
's Looking Backward
(1888) and H. G. Wells
's In the Days of the Comet
(1906).
Gilman pointedly calls her book "a short-distance Utopia, a baby Utopia, a little one that can grow." Gilman casts her protagonist into a reformed future, but without the "element of extreme remoteness" found in other books. Bellamy had thrust his hero Julian West 113 years ahead, from 1887 to 2000; his predecessor John Macnie hurled his narrator a full 7700 years into the future in The Diothas
(1883). Gilman, in contrast, moves her character John Robertson only three decades ahead, from roughly 1910 to around 1940. (Bellamy was the most famous author of his era to employ this trick, and his many imitators and opponents used it in their sequels and responses. Yet the tactic of moving a character forward in time can be found in American literature as far back as Mary Griffith
's 1836 story Three Hundred Years Hence
.) Perkins's strategy had previously been employed by Bradford Peck, who propelled his hero 25 years forward in The World a Department Store
(1900).
Perkins sends a man forward in time to a better world, but gives him deep difficulties in adjusting to it. Here again she was not the first author to try the tactic: W. H. Hudson
's A Crystal Age
(1887) and Elizabeth Corbett's New Amazonia
(1889) take the same general approach.
, a man in local costume, backed by a group of native people, confronts a woman at the head of an exploratory expedition. There is a sudden sense of realization as the man and woman recognize each other as siblings; the man collapses, overcome by shock.
The story then switches to a first-person account, written by John Robertson after his meeting with his sister Ellen. Thirty years earlier, at the age of 25, Robertson had been traveling through rural Tibet; wandering away from his party, he had gotten lost and had fallen over a precipice. He was nursed back to health by local villagers, but his memory was deeply impaired. It was only when his sister found him that he regained his recollection. He returns to the United States with her, to face a society that is vastly different from the one he knew in his youth.
Around 1920, while Robertson was living obscurely in Tibet, America had adopted a system of economics described as being "beyond Socialism", a strain of nationalism that answered all the questions posed by socialism without actually being socialist, renovating its society and culture; and from there it had continued to develop into a more efficient nation, through "social evolution" and a vague "new religion." Robertson is surprised to learn that his sister is the president of a college — and is astounded to realize that she is a married college president. He meets his brother-in-law and nephew and niece, and is repeatedly challenged in his traditional attitudes. He is not a feminist; on the ship homeward he meets an attractive and vivacious young woman, and thinks of her, "My sister must have been mistaken about her being a civil engineer. She might be a college girl — but nothing worse."
Most of the book consists of John Robertson being instructed, by his family members and others, in the new, rational, well-organized social order. Gilman's America of 1940 is a country with no poverty or prostitution, "no labor problem — no color problem — no sex problem — almost no disease — very little accident — practically no fires," a place in which "the only kind of prison left is called a quarantine," where problems of deforestation and soil erosion are being remedied, and in which "no one needs to work over two hours a day and most people work four...."
The central chapters in the book deliver Gilman's program for reforming society. She concentrates on measures of rationality and efficiency that could be instituted in her own time, largely with greater social cooperation — equal education and treatment for girls and boys, day-care centers for working women, and other issues still relevant a century later. Yet Gilman also allows for technological progress: electric power is the motive force in industry and urban society, power generated largely by the tides (a technology that is only being developed in the early twenty-first century in the real world), plus "wind-mills, water mills," and "solar engines." And the sky is full of "airships."
People now practice a "new humanitarianism." Vegetarianism is in fashion, hunting is out, and zoos are no more. (Gilman's concept of animal rights, however, provides for the elimination of predators, to save their prey.) Tobacco and alcohol are also out of fashion, because emancipated women condemn those habits.
Robertson does not find it easy to accept the new social order; his sister gently mocks him as an example of "An Extinct Species of Mind," as exotic as a "Woolly Mammoth." He even longs for the noisy, dirty, crowded chaos of the cities of his youth, in preference to the clean, quiet, "beautiful" cities of 1940. In his discontent, Robertson travels to his home state of South Carolina
to visit his Uncle Jake, an old farmer and a determined reactionary who rejects the radical improvements of the past thirty years. Uncle Jake still practices subsistence farming with his elderly wife and middle-aged spinster daughter Drusilla. Robertson remembers his cousin Drusilla, ten years his junior, as a darling child — and is shocked by the harsh and deprived life she lives. His "thirty years in Tibet," which had weighed heavily upon his thoughts, now seem like "a holiday compared to this thirty years on an upland farm in the Alleghanies of Carolina." He convinces Drusilla to marry him, to salve his own loneliness and to give her a better life — and in doing so Robertson comes to accept the superior modern world he had previously resisted.
, often to the detriment of personal liberties. The raising of children and related matters are subject to social regimentation. As her protagonist John Robertson comments at one point, "I've glimpsed a sort of 'iron hand in a velvet glove' back of all this." New laws "check the birth of defectives and degenerates" and "criminals and perverts" are sterilized. Indeed, Gilman goes farther in this book than she does elsewhere in her canon; it has been noted that this is the only one of her works "in which Gilman sanctioned the killing of social 'undesirables' by the state...."
Gilman's fictional transformation of America had its dark side: one informant explains to John Robertson that "We killed many hopeless degenerates, insane, idiots, and real perverts, after trying our best powers of cure." Yet new methods of treatment make such extreme measures less necessary; the character in the book who speaks these words is a reformed alcoholic and cocaine addict who has become a university professor...of ethics.
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
utopian novel
Utopian and dystopian fiction
The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia...
written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
. It was published serially in Perkins Gilman's periodical The Forerunner
Forerunner (magazine)
The Forerunner was a monthly magazine produced by Charlotte Perkins Gilman , from 1909 through 1916...
and then in book form, both in 1911
1911 in literature
The year 1911 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*George Moore publishes the first of his three-volume Hail and Farewell .*Gallimard publishing house founded in Paris by Gaston Gallimard...
. The book was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The novel was also the first volume in Gilman's utopian trilogy; it was followed by the famous Herland
Herland (novel)
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis . The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination...
(1915) and its sequel, With Her in Ourland
With Her in Ourland
With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland is a feminist novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and originally published in 1916 in Gilman's self-authored and edited periodical The Forerunner...
(1916).
Genre
In a brief Preface, Gilman plainly identifies her novel with the established utopian literature; she cites The Republic of PlatoPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and the original Utopia
Utopia (book)
Utopia is a work of fiction by Thomas More published in 1516...
of Sir Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
, along with Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000. He was a very influential writer during the Gilded Age of United States history.-Early life:...
's Looking Backward
Looking Backward
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from western Massachusetts; it was first published in 1887...
(1888) and H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's In the Days of the Comet
In the Days of the Comet
In the Days of the Comet is a 1906 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which the vapors of a comet are used as a device which brings about a profound and lasting transformation in the attitudes and perspectives of humankind.-Plot summary:...
(1906).
Gilman pointedly calls her book "a short-distance Utopia, a baby Utopia, a little one that can grow." Gilman casts her protagonist into a reformed future, but without the "element of extreme remoteness" found in other books. Bellamy had thrust his hero Julian West 113 years ahead, from 1887 to 2000; his predecessor John Macnie hurled his narrator a full 7700 years into the future in The Diothas
The Diothas
The Diothas; or, A Far Look Ahead is a 1883 utopian novel written by John Macnie and published using the pseudonym "Ismar Thiusen". The Diothas has been called "perhaps the second most important American nineteenth-century ideal society" after Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward .-Synopsis:The novel...
(1883). Gilman, in contrast, moves her character John Robertson only three decades ahead, from roughly 1910 to around 1940. (Bellamy was the most famous author of his era to employ this trick, and his many imitators and opponents used it in their sequels and responses. Yet the tactic of moving a character forward in time can be found in American literature as far back as Mary Griffith
Mary Griffith
Mary Griffith was an American writer, horticulturist and scientist. Born Mary Corre, she married John Griffith, a wealthy New York City merchant who died in 1815. After the death of her husband she purchased an estate in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey...
's 1836 story Three Hundred Years Hence
Three Hundred Years Hence
Three Hundred Years Hence is a utopian science fiction novel by author Mary Griffith. It is the first known utopian novel written by an American woman and was published by Prime Press in 1950 in an edition of 300 copies...
.) Perkins's strategy had previously been employed by Bradford Peck, who propelled his hero 25 years forward in The World a Department Store
The World a Department Store
The World a Department Store: A Story of Life Under a Coöperative System is a utopian novel written by Bradford C. Peck, and published by him in 1900. The book was one entrant in the wave of utopian and dystopian writing that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...
(1900).
Perkins sends a man forward in time to a better world, but gives him deep difficulties in adjusting to it. Here again she was not the first author to try the tactic: W. H. Hudson
William Henry Hudson
William Henry Hudson was an author, naturalist, and ornithologist.- Life and work :Hudson was born in the Quilmes, a borough of the greater Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, son of settlers of U.S. origin...
's A Crystal Age
A Crystal Age
A Crystal Age is a utopian novel written by W. H. Hudson, first published in 1887. The book has been called a "significant S-F milestone" and has been noted for its anticipation of the "modern ecological mysticism" that would evolve a century later....
(1887) and Elizabeth Corbett's New Amazonia
New Amazonia
New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future is a feminist utopian novel, written by Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett and first published in 1889. It was one element in the wave of utopian and dystopian literature that marked the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.-The plot:In her novel, Corbett...
(1889) take the same general approach.
Synopsis
The novel opens with a brief scene written in the third person: at a remote location in TibetTibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, a man in local costume, backed by a group of native people, confronts a woman at the head of an exploratory expedition. There is a sudden sense of realization as the man and woman recognize each other as siblings; the man collapses, overcome by shock.
The story then switches to a first-person account, written by John Robertson after his meeting with his sister Ellen. Thirty years earlier, at the age of 25, Robertson had been traveling through rural Tibet; wandering away from his party, he had gotten lost and had fallen over a precipice. He was nursed back to health by local villagers, but his memory was deeply impaired. It was only when his sister found him that he regained his recollection. He returns to the United States with her, to face a society that is vastly different from the one he knew in his youth.
Around 1920, while Robertson was living obscurely in Tibet, America had adopted a system of economics described as being "beyond Socialism", a strain of nationalism that answered all the questions posed by socialism without actually being socialist, renovating its society and culture; and from there it had continued to develop into a more efficient nation, through "social evolution" and a vague "new religion." Robertson is surprised to learn that his sister is the president of a college — and is astounded to realize that she is a married college president. He meets his brother-in-law and nephew and niece, and is repeatedly challenged in his traditional attitudes. He is not a feminist; on the ship homeward he meets an attractive and vivacious young woman, and thinks of her, "My sister must have been mistaken about her being a civil engineer. She might be a college girl — but nothing worse."
Most of the book consists of John Robertson being instructed, by his family members and others, in the new, rational, well-organized social order. Gilman's America of 1940 is a country with no poverty or prostitution, "no labor problem — no color problem — no sex problem — almost no disease — very little accident — practically no fires," a place in which "the only kind of prison left is called a quarantine," where problems of deforestation and soil erosion are being remedied, and in which "no one needs to work over two hours a day and most people work four...."
The central chapters in the book deliver Gilman's program for reforming society. She concentrates on measures of rationality and efficiency that could be instituted in her own time, largely with greater social cooperation — equal education and treatment for girls and boys, day-care centers for working women, and other issues still relevant a century later. Yet Gilman also allows for technological progress: electric power is the motive force in industry and urban society, power generated largely by the tides (a technology that is only being developed in the early twenty-first century in the real world), plus "wind-mills, water mills," and "solar engines." And the sky is full of "airships."
People now practice a "new humanitarianism." Vegetarianism is in fashion, hunting is out, and zoos are no more. (Gilman's concept of animal rights, however, provides for the elimination of predators, to save their prey.) Tobacco and alcohol are also out of fashion, because emancipated women condemn those habits.
Robertson does not find it easy to accept the new social order; his sister gently mocks him as an example of "An Extinct Species of Mind," as exotic as a "Woolly Mammoth." He even longs for the noisy, dirty, crowded chaos of the cities of his youth, in preference to the clean, quiet, "beautiful" cities of 1940. In his discontent, Robertson travels to his home state of South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
to visit his Uncle Jake, an old farmer and a determined reactionary who rejects the radical improvements of the past thirty years. Uncle Jake still practices subsistence farming with his elderly wife and middle-aged spinster daughter Drusilla. Robertson remembers his cousin Drusilla, ten years his junior, as a darling child — and is shocked by the harsh and deprived life she lives. His "thirty years in Tibet," which had weighed heavily upon his thoughts, now seem like "a holiday compared to this thirty years on an upland farm in the Alleghanies of Carolina." He convinces Drusilla to marry him, to salve his own loneliness and to give her a better life — and in doing so Robertson comes to accept the superior modern world he had previously resisted.
Eugenics and social control
In Moving the Mountain as in other of her works, Gilman entertains concepts of eugenicsEugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
, often to the detriment of personal liberties. The raising of children and related matters are subject to social regimentation. As her protagonist John Robertson comments at one point, "I've glimpsed a sort of 'iron hand in a velvet glove' back of all this." New laws "check the birth of defectives and degenerates" and "criminals and perverts" are sterilized. Indeed, Gilman goes farther in this book than she does elsewhere in her canon; it has been noted that this is the only one of her works "in which Gilman sanctioned the killing of social 'undesirables' by the state...."
Gilman's fictional transformation of America had its dark side: one informant explains to John Robertson that "We killed many hopeless degenerates, insane, idiots, and real perverts, after trying our best powers of cure." Yet new methods of treatment make such extreme measures less necessary; the character in the book who speaks these words is a reformed alcoholic and cocaine addict who has become a university professor...of ethics.
Wells and feminism
Gilman notes the influence of H. G. Wells in her Preface — but she also takes a sharp dig at him for his limited understanding of the feminist position.- "That turbid freshet of an Englishman, Wells, who did so much to stir his generation, said, 'I am wholly feminist' — and he was! He saw women only as females and wanted them endowed as such. He was never able to see them as human beings and amply competent to take care of themselves."