reflection on Rappaccini’s Daughter

(story by Nathaniel Hawthorne)

It occurs to me that the boundaries of good and evil aren’t at all clear. I wonder whether Lisabetta was indeed hired by Rappaccini, or perhaps he simply influenced her to show the private door to Giovanni. This thought does, in fact, run through Giovanni’s mind, but he ignores it. Was he already becoming poisoned at this point? Or was he simply so drawn be Beatrice that he couldn’t help himself? And was that attraction the poison in itself, or was it truly the scent of flowers and her breath that he inhaled?

I don’t believe that Beatrice was a “poisonous woman” as some are suggesting, or that Hawthorne is insinuating that at all. Someone in class mentioned that this characterization of Beatrice and her misery reminded her of The Scarlet Letter, also by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Now, one person took this to mean he was a misogynist. I don’t think this is true… she was not inherently evil. Beatrice, as she said, only wanted to be loved and to be able to love in return. It could be seen in her eyes – it could be seen in the interest she took not only in the plants and flowers around her, but also in the living creatures that perished because of her poisonous breath. Any claim that she is evil at heart and service is completely invalid, especially as she takes her own life tragically at the end.

So who exactly is at fault? Is it Rappaccini, for experimenting on his own daughter? Or was it even his daughter? I noticed that there was no wife or mother – was the mother poisoned? Did she leave? Or was Beatrice nothing more than a play-thing for Rappaccini – a person to tend for his poisonous vegetation? I do think, however, that Rappaccini loved Beatrice. He did, after all, have a strange passion for these poisonous yet brilliant flowers, and he did attempt to bring love to her life – make another monster, so to speak. Unlike the Frankenstein, however, Rappaccini loved his monster – wanted to make his monster happy.

This brings us to Baglioni. His last words of the story – indeed, the last words of the story itself – were “Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment?” In a way, Baglioni was responsible for Beatrice’s death. He, as a doctor himself, would surely know that the antidote would kill a person whose very blood and breath is poison. He obviously was at great odds with Rappaccini, so did he somehow entice Lisabetta to lure Giovanni into the garden, knowing he could thus kill Beatrice? I think this is highly doubtful, but nevertheless, Baglioni was at least as evil as Rappaccini.