Title: Rappaccini’s Daughter
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Date of First Publication: 1844
Place of Publication: The United States Magazine and Democratic Review
Type: Short Story
Characters: No Character
Themes: MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; POSTHUMAN; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: Giovanni Guasconti, a young student at the University of Padua, takes residence in a small chamber of an old mansion. There he spends his time looking out the window at a well-kept garden, and soon notices a man tending to the garden. This man, he learns, is Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, a famous doctor who uses his garden specimens for the scientific study of medicines. Rappiccini’s young daughter, Beatrice, also emerges from the garden, full of verdant beauty, and Giovanni becomes enamored of her. One day, as Beatrice tends the garden, Giovanni watches as she communes with the plants, and notices a beautiful shrub with magnificent purple flowers, which appears to be her botanical counterpart. Beatrice unknowingly reveals that the shrub is poisonous when she plucks a flower, and a drop of moisture falls on a lizard’s head and kills it. Giovanni also witnesses a flying insect die from her noxious breath. Despite his terror, Giovanni cannot resist her beauty and returns to his window after many days of avoiding the garden view.
Soon after, Giovanni’s professor, Signor Pietro Baglioni, warns him that Rappaccini is using Giovanni as a subject in one of his experiments, and that Beatrice is also involved. Despite Baglioni’s warning, Giovanni does not listen. Giovanni returns home, and is met by his landlord, Lisabetta, who shows him a private entrance to the garden. There he meets Beatrice and the two fall in love. They meet frequently, and as a result, Giovanni becomes affected by Beatrice and the shrub she tends. A few weeks later, Giovanni and Balgioni meet again, and his professor notices Giovanni’s breath has a sweet scent. Giovanni confronts Beatrice upon learning about his apparent transformation and accuses her of cursing him. She claims it was not her intention to poison him, but that she only wanted love. She explains to him that her father raised her alongside the shrub, nurturing her with the plant so that she would become just as beautiful and deadly. After her story, Giovanni presents her with an antidote, supplied by Baglioni, that would cure them both of the poison. Rappaccini confronts them in the garden and Beatrice proclaims that she would rather die than live knowing she instills terror in others, especially in Giovanni. She drinks the antidote which kills her.
Rappaccini’s Daughter is connected to Frankenstein through themes of the “Mad Scientist,” “Sympathetic Monster,” “Posthuman” and “The Last Man.” While Rappaccini is seldom in view, he fits the role of the stereotypical mad scientist: old, maniacal and insensitive to the effects his experiments have on those he loves. Rappaccini’s garden is filled with specimens that are grown in the name of medicine, but his creations also have an inclination to kill. He, like Victor, compels science and nature to produce something beyond human, such as manufacture his own daughter as a hybrid between human and plant, which relates to the theme of “Posthuman.” Beatrice herself becomes the Sympathetic Monster, as she becomes emotionally involved with Giovanni, and cares about what might happen if they were to become too intimate. Frankenstein’s monster is externally hideous, but his tragic story allows for readers to feel sympathy and compassion despite his murderous actions. Beatrice, on the other hand, is an exceedingly beautiful young woman who does not seem capable of harming anyone. However, because of her father’s conditioning, she too becomes poisonous to those around her. She did not wish for her existence in this way – she is just another subject in one of Rappaccini’s experiments, which evokes the same kind of sympathy in readers as Frankenstein’s monster. Both Frankenstein’s monster and Beatrice are examples of the themes “Posthuman” and “Last Man” because each possess a kind of supernatural power that emphasizes the destruction of human qualities.
Administrative Notes: Hallie Houdetsanakis, CSUF; Adam Shelley (Editing)