SOURCE: “‘Begin Again!’: The Cutting Social Edge of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Gentle Religious Optimism,” in Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited by Joanne B. Karpinski, New York: G. K. Hall and Co., 1992, pp. 129-43.

In the following essay, Kirkpatrick discusses Gilman's female-centered theology, locating the historical context for it in late-nineteenth-century romanticism.

The religious mood of America has oscillated historically between deep despair over the depravity of the human condition and unbounded optimism about its potential for perfection. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's religious views can only be properly appreciated within the context of this historical oscillation. Writing her only sustained study of religion after the horrors of the First World War, she seems remarkably undaunted by the heavy blow that conflict struck at others' confidence that the human race was evolving steadily toward unfettered happiness. In the light of the postwar themes of despair and anxiety that characterized...