Rappaccini's Daughter Summary

Hawthorne begins the story with a brief description of the literary style and work of fictional Monsieur L'Aubepine, the author of "Rappaccini's Daughter". Giovanni Guasconti, a young man from southern Italy, comes to Padua to pursue a University education. His room, a high and gloomy chamber in an old mansion, is desolate but for a sole window, which overlooks a beautiful garden. The garden, the youth is told, belongs to Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, a famous doctor who distils the plants from his garden into medicines. In the center of the magnificent garden is one particularly interesting plant a large shrub with purple blossoms set in a marble vase. While peering through his window, Giovanni spies the doctor working in the garden. The doctor, a tall, old, emaciated and sickly looking man, examines each plant with clinical intentness; he does not treat the plants with emotion, avoiding both their odors and their touch. As the doctor nears the purple plant, he puts on a mask, but as if finding the task of tending to the plant to be still too dangerous, he calls for his daughter, Beatrice. He relinquishes care of the plant to his daughter, who, as strikingly beautiful as the plants around her, busily begins to tend to the poisonous plant as if it were a sister. That night, Giovanni dreams about Beatrice; in the dream, flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some strange peril in either shape". The next day, Giovanni meets with Signor Pietro Baglioni, a professor of medicine and Giovannis fathers old friend. He tells Giovanni that Doctor Rappaccini is a brilliant scientist with an objectionable character, as he cares more for science than for mankind and would gladly sacrifice the lives of others for intellectual gain. Baglioni laughs at Giovannis interest in Beatrice; while all young men are wild about her, few have had the fortune of seeing her. Baglioni suggests that Beatrice has learned at her father's feet and that "she is already qualified to fill a professor's chair". On the way home, Giovanni happens to pass a florist and purchases a bouquet of flowers. Back in his room, Giovanni sees Beatrice pluck one of the blossoms from the purple shrub. A few drops of moisture from the plant fall upon a passing lizard, killing it instantaneously. Beatrice seems unsurprised, and fastens the poisonous blossom to her bosom. Soon thereafter, Beatrice stops to admire a beautiful insect which immediately drops dead, seemingly at her breath. Giovanni witnesses these scenes with awe and horror, but scarcely has time to respond before Beatrice sees him spying on her from the window. He throws down the bouquet of flowers; she thanks him, and runs away. As she leaves, Giovanni believes that he sees the flowers already withering in her grasp. For days after this encounter, Giovanni avoids the window, with feelings of both fear and love alive in his heart. He took to running through the streets, his pace matching the pace of thoughts whirling about in his brain. One day, he is overtaken by Baglioni, who is surprised at his haste. Doctor Rappaccini passes him, and the look in his eye tells Baglioni that Giovanni has become the subject of one of the Doctors experiments. Giovanni does not want to accept this possibility, and breaks away from the old professor. On his way home, Giovanni is stopped by Lisabetta, an old woman who showed him his room when he first moved to the city. Lisabetta leads him to the gardens secret entryway; for a moment, the thought asses Giovannis mind that this might be part of the doctors experiment, but it seemed absolutely necessary that he continue into the garden. Inside the garden, Giovanni and Beatrice begin to talk. She mentions that she knows nothing of her fathers science, and asks Giovanni to believe only what he sees with his own

eyes. Walking through the garden, they stop at the purple plant. Giovanni extends his hand to pluck one of its blossoms, but Beatrice grasps his hand and flings it away from the plant, exclaiming that it is fatal. Beatrice flees, and Giovanni sees the Doctor watching them from the shadows. When Giovanni awoke the next day, his hand in pain from her touch, a purple outline of her fingers visible on his skin. After many meetings with Beatrice, Giovanni is visited one day by Professor Baglioni, who comments on the smell of a strange perfume in Giovannis room. Baglioni tells Giovanni a story of an Indian prince who sent a woman as a present to Alexander the Great. This woman was beautiful, but had a deadly secret she had been nourished with poison since birth, so that her being became poisonous and her embrace would bring death. Baglioni tells Giovanni that this is Beatrices secret as well, a truth Giovanni is unwilling to accept. Baglioni gives Giovanni a vial with an antidote, which he urges Giovanni to give to Beatrice and cure her of her fathers work. After showing his visitor the door, however, Giovanni finds that flowers wilt at his touch, and a spider dies from his breath. He realizes that he has now become poisonous, like Beatrice. In the garden, he confronts Beatrice about the plant. She reveals that her father created it, and that she knew of its dangerous powers and of its effect on her. Giovanni curses her for severing him from the world and knowingly entrancing him into the same horrible state. Beatrice is shocked, and gravely upset by this. She swears ignorance, and although Giovanni comes to believe her, his words had already hurt her deeply. Giovanni doesnt realize the weight of his words and believes he can still save her; he gives her the antidote, which she willingly drinks. At that same instant, her father appears. He tells her that it was nor a curse, but rather a gift, to be made as terrible as she was beautiful. But, Beatrice retorts that she would rather have been loved than feared. As she sinks to the ground, she reminds Giovanni of his hateful words, and asks him, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine? The poison in her body had become part of her life; the antidote succeeded not in saving her but in killing her. Baglioni, looking forth from the window, is both triumphant for finally defeating Rappaccini at his own game but also horrified at the result.

Analysis
Hawthorne begins this story with a preamble about the French "author" of the tale - a man by the name of l'Aubepine. In French, aubepine is the name for a flowering shrub known in English as hawthorn. "Rappacini's Daughter" begins with a literary joke which calls attention to Hawthorne's role as storyteller, and continues with allusions to works such as The Divine Comedy and the Bible. Beatrice, the title character, is a reference to Dante's guide through Paradiso in The Divine Comedy; Giovanni's own relative is rumored to have been the inspiration for one of Dante's characters; Rappaccini's garden is referred to as the "Eden of the present world". Beatrice's undoing at the end of the story is precipitated by her loss of innocence; once she knows that she is poisonous, she chooses to die. The storys tragic end demonstrates that Beatrices death is the product of the ambitions of three men. Her father, Doctor Rappaccini, may be considered a callous scientist who, as Baglioni would have us believe, offered his daughter up as a scientific experiment. Rappaccinis true motivations, however, are revealed in his final words to his daughter: "My daughter, thou art no longer lonely in the world! Pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub, and bid thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him now! My science, and the sympathy between thee and him, have so wrought within his system, that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. Pass on, then, through the world, most dear to one another, and dreadful to all besides!"

Beatrice, however, laments her condition, to which Rappaccini replies: "What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts, against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy? Misery, to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath? Misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil, and capable of none?" In these words, Rappaccini demonstrates that he meant not to harm his daughter, but rather protect her from the evils of the world. In a sense, he can be regarded as the most dedicated of fathers, using his ingenuity and expertise to fashion a lasting defense mechanism for his daughter. On the other hand, in his final exchange with Beatrice, he does not seem to understand why his daughter would prefer to live a normal and defense-free human being. Instead, he naively believed that bringing Giovanni into her same state so that the two could live an insulated life together could make her happy. How could such an intelligent scientist misunderstand the needs of the human heart? Giovanni, too, is not what we originally see. Instead of a youth in love, he is merely overtaken with curiosity, lust, and vanity. In fact, his interest in Beatrice can, in a way, be compared to Rappaccinis interest in science, and Baglionis interest in the old rules of medicine. All these men care for one thing, but in pursuing it, neglect its true foundation. Giovanni rashly lashes out at Beatrice, demonstrating that his love for her was ridden with doubt and distrust, demonstrating his own shallow and selfish nature. Rappaccini aims to protect his daughter, but in doing so, overlooks her personal interests. And Baglioni, while claiming to uphold the good rules of medicine that protect human life, invest suspicions into Giovannis mind and presents him with the very medicine that kills Beatrice, making him just as evil as Rappaccini in the end. This story bears a similar lesson to those learned in many of Hawthorne's other works. Specifically, it warns against what may happen to man when, in the quest for scientific or intellectual development, he "attempts to usurp the function of God," a lesson observed in The Birthmark" and "Ethan Brand". Some have argued that the story is an allegory for the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, with Rappaccini as Adam, and Beatrice as Eve. Although in Hawthorne's tale Rappaccini infects Beatrice and not the other way around, the argument has been made that perhaps Hawthorne transferred some of Eve's role to Adam as he did not fully accept the Scriptural description. As is the case with Georgiana in "The Birthmark", Beatrice does not have agency over her own life - only her death. Here, Hawthorne is subtly critiquing the gender roles of his time. Rappaccini and Giovanni's desires to control or change Beatrice lead to her ruin, a fate she accepts.

Rappaccini's Daughter Characters

Giovanni Guasconti
At the beginning of the story, Giovanni has moved from his home insouthern Italy into lodgings in Padua in the north of Italy. From the beginning, it is obvious he is an impressionable youth. The strange beauty of Rappaccini's garden below his bedroom windowastonishes him. At the same time, he appreciates the way Rappacccini carefully and intelligently deals with his plants.

His life changes when he sees Beatrice. She takes him aback with her beauty and charm. Unlike her father, Giovanni notices that, rather treating the plants with care, she treats them like friends, going right up to them and smelling their scent. Baglioni, a professor at his university, and a friend of his father, the only connection he has with home, tries to warn Giovanni that Rappaccini grows poisonous plants - Giovanni himself could become part of his experiment.

Rappaccini's Daughter Objects/Places

Padua
Giovanni moves to Padua in northern Italy from southern Italy.

Rappacinni's Garden
Rappaccini's garden is full of poisonous but beautiful plants. The centerpiece of garden is an old cracked marble fountain with a purple flower growing next it. The author compares the plants petals to gems that illuminate the whole garden.

Giovanni's Lodgings.
Giovanni lodges with Lisabetta. His bedroom, where he spends most of his time, overlooks Rappaccini's garden.

The Bouquet
Giovanni throws Beatrice a bouquet from his bedroom window. It is so full of beautiful flowers and color combinations that Beatrice presumes he knows something about plants.

The Fountain
Though the marble fountain in the center of Rappaccini's is cracked down the middle, water still flows from it. Giiovanni thinks it has a noblequality.

The Purple Flower

A beautiful purple flower grows near the marble fountain. Its purple petals have the richness of gems, illuminating the whole garden. Beatrice regards the plant as a kind of friend,

Rappaccini's Daughter Themes

Achieving a Balance in One's Life
The story states a huge emphasis on achieving balance in one's life. When Giovanni first arrives in Padua, though naive, he has obviously spent a lot of his time concentrating on his intellectual side and not enough time on his more romantic passionate side. Consequently, the garden and the beautiful Beatrice fascinate him, seeing them as a vehicle he can discover that underdeveloped side of himself.

In comparison, the other characters have concentrated on one side of their personality for so long and developed it so fully, there seems no chance they could ever find any balance in their lives. Baglioni and Rappaccni have become obsessed with science and intellect. Rappaccini's garden and his quest to find cures has become so importantto him, he has forgotten that his initial was aim was to help humankind.

Rappaccini's Daughter Style

Point of View
The author tells the story from the third person, but mostly from the point of view of the main character Giovanni. Every scene includes him and he is the character the reader gets to understand on an intimatelevel. Yet, by the end of the story, the reader can see author's focus on him has worked to lead the reader astray. The central story is not about Giovanni's innocence and him finding himself, as it is easy to believe, but the rivalry between the two professors: Baglioni and Rappaccini. Slowly through the story, they have manipulated Giovanni in attempt to get what they want. The reader can see that by the way Giovanni thinks - his mind dancing away on romantic notions - that they did not have hard task.

Rappaccini's Daughter Quotes

"Reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heart-break natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily, as he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment" (p. 1). "There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and the richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine" (p. 2). "She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were, and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone" (p. 3).