Conclusion

Abstract

Kate Chopin and Catholicism closes by shaping its explorations of Chopin’s short fiction and novels into a final look at the Catholic aesthetic and the implications for Chopin’s studies. Kate Chopin and Catholicism culminates in its final conclusions about the nature of the religious aesthetic as it appears to have stemmed not just from the author’s experience as a formerly practicing Catholic, but as a writer whose depictions of mysticism transcended the doctrinal limits of Catholicism and opened an alternate path to women’s autonomy and spirituality generally, as well as anticipated the rise of the Modernist era.