Rappaccini's Daughter

"Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne that concerns a medical researcher in medieval Padua.

Characters

• Rappaccini - ethically dubious researcher of the medicinal properties of plants. He plays God with the life of his daughter.
• Giovanni - young medical student, the focus point of Rappaccini's research and the aspiring lover of Beatrice.
• Beatrice - daughter of the researcher, imbued with poison through her father's experiments. She is an allegory of Dante's Beatrice, a woman who Dante met only twice in his lifetime and fell deeply in love with. Dante classifies her as the personification of perfection and purity. It is because of Beatrice that Dante travels through hell (inferno), purgatory and heaven which is where Beatrice replaces Virgil as Dante's guide.
• Professor Baglioni - Giovanni's (and his father's) friend, a professor in medicine, academic rival of Rappaccini and can be considered to be both evil or good.
• Lisabetta- Giovanni's housekeeper, a kind elderly woman.

Hawthorne begins the story with a "fictional" introduction to the writings of monsiure "Aubépine." He both praises and criticizes the author's style and intent. Of course, the author is Nathaniel Hawthorne himself. One purpose of this introduction, aside from light humor, is to establish a tone of uncertainty and confusion in the reader. These introductory remarks tell of a fictional fiction-author writing an introduction to this new work of fiction, yet true bibliographical information and half-truths are scattered throughout. And though this is not going to "confuse" the reader, it is likely to throw off expectations and establish extra-textually the theme of the interrelationship of perception, reality and fantasy.

Ideas and Themes to Explore:

> The paradoxical/inverse Garden of Eden
> The malevolence/benevolence of Beatrice and Rappaccini
> The notion that fantasy and reality work together and against each other to create your perceptions

"Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her character. Yet, so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a simple, natural, most affectionate and guileless creature, that the image now held up by Professor Baglioni, looked as strange and incredible, as if it were not in accordance with his own original conception. True, there were ugly recollections connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her breath. These incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her character, had no longer the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they might appear to be substantiated."

Typical of Hawthorne's stories, Rappaccini's Daughter is an allegory to both the Divine Comedy and the Garden of Eden. The story juxtaposes the scientifical aspects of research (Professor Rappaccini and Professor Baglioni) with spirituality (Giovanni and Beatrice). This story provides an interesting approach to the voyeurism presented by the scientists and how far can two people love each other despite physical barriers.

The end of the stories leaves many readers bedaffled as Baglioni goes into an awkward euphoria after realizing that his experiment was a success. The purpose of the experiment is unknown to readers and should be left in question.

External link

Text of story