Herland

by

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Celis Character Analysis

Celis is the Herlandian woman who marries Jeff. Celis is frequently bewildered by Jeff’s evident adoration of her and rebuffs his attempts to treat her as weak or in need of protection. Aside from this, Celis and Jeff fall deeply in love with each other and become the only couple (the others being Ellador and Van, and Terry and Alima) to consummate their marriage. Celis is also the first woman in Herland to get pregnant by a man in over 2,000 years and is therefore treated with extreme reverence and kindness. Terry, Ellador, and Van leave Herland before the birth of Celis’s child, but Jeff decides to stay with her in Herland.

Celis Quotes in Herland

The Herland quotes below are all either spoken by Celis or refer to Celis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Womanhood and Femininity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8: The Girls of Herland Quotes

What left us even more at sea in our approach was the lack of any sex-tradition. There was no accepted standard of what was “manly” and what was “womanly.”

When Jeff said, taking the fruit basket from his adored one, “A woman should not carry anything,” Celis said, “Why?” with the frankest amazement. He could not look at that fleet-footed, deep-chested young forester in the face and say, “Because she is weaker.” She wasn’t. One does not call a race horse weak because it is visibly not a cart horse.

Related Characters: Vandyck “Van” Jennings (speaker), Jeff Margrave (speaker), Celis (speaker)
Page Number: 100-101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Our Difficulties Quotes

This is one thing which we did not understand—had made no allowance for. When in our pre-marital discussions one of those dear girls had said: “We understand it thus and thus,” or “We hold such and such to be true,” we men, in our own deep-seated convictions of the power of love, and our easy views about beliefs and principles, fondly imagined that we could convince them otherwise. What we imagined, before marriage, did not matter any more than what an average innocent girl imagines. We found the facts to be different.

Related Characters: Vandyck “Van” Jennings (speaker), Jeff Margrave, Terry O. Nicholson, Ellador, Celis, Alima
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
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Celis Quotes in Herland

The Herland quotes below are all either spoken by Celis or refer to Celis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Womanhood and Femininity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8: The Girls of Herland Quotes

What left us even more at sea in our approach was the lack of any sex-tradition. There was no accepted standard of what was “manly” and what was “womanly.”

When Jeff said, taking the fruit basket from his adored one, “A woman should not carry anything,” Celis said, “Why?” with the frankest amazement. He could not look at that fleet-footed, deep-chested young forester in the face and say, “Because she is weaker.” She wasn’t. One does not call a race horse weak because it is visibly not a cart horse.

Related Characters: Vandyck “Van” Jennings (speaker), Jeff Margrave (speaker), Celis (speaker)
Page Number: 100-101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Our Difficulties Quotes

This is one thing which we did not understand—had made no allowance for. When in our pre-marital discussions one of those dear girls had said: “We understand it thus and thus,” or “We hold such and such to be true,” we men, in our own deep-seated convictions of the power of love, and our easy views about beliefs and principles, fondly imagined that we could convince them otherwise. What we imagined, before marriage, did not matter any more than what an average innocent girl imagines. We found the facts to be different.

Related Characters: Vandyck “Van” Jennings (speaker), Jeff Margrave, Terry O. Nicholson, Ellador, Celis, Alima
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis: