Race and Religion
Modern critics have found unsavory elements in Gilman's works: preoccupations with eugenics and euthanasia, plus "racism and nativism," class biases and other prejudices. Some portions of With Her in Ourland, especially the tenth installment, bear upon this subject matter. In the novel's tenth chapter, Ellador confronts a sociologist from the American South, and examines and exposes the illogical racist assumptions of his positions. In the context of her own era, Gilman was to a significant degree anti-racist.
The same chapter in Ourland also considers the status of Jews, what was then called the "Jewish problem." Gilman advocates intermarriage and assimilation of the Jews into the modern societies in which they lived — another position that was more liberal then than it is now.
Read more about this topic: With Her In Ourland: Sequel To Herland
Famous quotes containing the words race and/or religion:
“For it is the nature and end of this relation, that they should represent the human race to each other. All that is in the world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought into the texture of man, of woman.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)