¶ … Hawthorne tale

Rappaccini's Daughter

Hawthorne's tales are all filled with an unmistakable, religious symbolism. Rappaccini's Daughter is a beautiful and fantastic allegory which approaches one of the author's favorite themes: man's sinful peering into the mysteries of the divine creation. The story is constructed of various oppositions that obviously hint at the traditional dichotomy between good and evil. Rappaccini, an old scientist, is, as Hawthorne directly alludes in the story, Adam who creates his own garden, a place which parallels the Eden created by God: "Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present world? -- and this man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to grow, was he the Adam?"(Hawthorne, 49) the scientist is so advanced in his knowledge of nature that, like Lucifer, he becomes a rival of God himself. However, his garden, although resplendent with beauty, is nevertheless artificial and extremely poisonous. The flowers burn with an evil gleam, like that of gems or precious stones, and the perfume they emanate is intoxicating to the senses yet ultimately fatal: "[the flowers'] gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural."(Hawthorne, 55) the emphasis is thus here on the artificiality of man's creation as opposed to that of God. The beauty of Rappaccini's garden vies with that of the paradisiacal beauty. The greatest difference between the two however is that Rappaccini's scientific quest for knowledge is barren and loveless. Nature, as created by God, is filled with the divine love of its creator and this particular quality cannot be copied by the hand of man. The story is pivoted on the love story between Beatrice, Rappaccini's daughter who is imbued with the poison of the garden, and a young man Giovanni Guasconti. Their infatuation turns into hatred though because of the poisonous curse of the garden. Beatrice however is redeemed when she dies in the end, wishing she had known true love and not just the artificial splendor of the garden: "Though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is God's creature, and craves love as its daily food."(Hawthorne, 67) Thus, the failed romance between the two lovers emphasizes the idea that any creation is barren if deprived of God's love. Thus, all creation must be performed with love, otherwise it is evil and it recalls the original sin.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Collected Stories. New York: Penguin, 1979.