Jul 24, 2008

Rappaccini’s Daughter | Overview

Nathaniel Hawthorne first published “Rappaccini’s Daughter” in the literary magazine The American Notebooks in 1844 and included it in his second collection of short stories, Mosses From an Old Manse, two years later. Reviews of Hawthorne’s early short stories were mixed. While Herman Melville compared this collection to the work of Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe complained that “the strain of allegory completely overwhelms” it. Originally titled “Writings of Aubépine: Rappaccini’s Daughter,” Hawthorne’s story might have been based on Dr. Robert Wesselhoeft, who at one time lived near Hawthorne and whom William Dean Holmes decried as a “quack” for his practice of homeopathic medicine.

Poe was correct in identifying the allegorical structure of the story, but its meanings continue to intrigue readers and critics because of the dense ambiguity arising from its fantastical plot that explores the relationship between good and evil, anxieties about women’s sexuality, and the relationship between nature and science. Indeed, scholars refer to it as Hawthorne’s most complex story. The handsome Giovanni falls in love with the beautiful Beatrice, the daughter of Dr. Rappaccini, a brilliant but ruthless scientist. In experimenting with nature to grow plants both exotic and poisonous, Rappaccini also experiments with the nature of his daughter, transferring their poison to her and in so doing giving her the power to destroy by her mere breath. Desiring a mate for his daughter to make her world “perfect,” Rappaccini ensures that Giovanni becomes infected with the same unnatural but beautiful poisons that give life to her. When Giovanni discovers and informs Beatrice of her nature, she takes the antidote he provides, but in ridding her of poison it rids her of life as well.