"Rappaccini's Daughter" is definitely a love story of sorts, so I believe that a strong case can be made that Giovanni is in love with Beatrice. It is not hard to imagine why he would fall for such a girl, either. She is from a financially fairly well-off family, she is an especially beautiful woman, and there is an air of mystery about Beatrice that increases his attraction to her. Readers are given evidence that supports the idea that their connection is deep and real and not only a physical, surface-level attraction. Readers get lines of text that indicate that a spiritual connection exists between Giovanni and Beatrice:
she was now the beautiful and unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty beyond all other knowledge.
On the other hand, I do think an argument could be made that Giovanni isn't actually in love...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
with Beatrice. He is definitely attracted to her. That I don't think can be argued against. He is initially attracted to her beauty and mystery, and I think that Beatrice's mystery might have become the main attraction. She is like a puzzle to him, and he wants to know the answer. It's why he buys her flowers in order to see if they will or will not wilt in her hands. He's giving her a test, and that doesn't exactly connote love. By the end of the story, Giovanni likely knows that the changes happening to him allow him to be with Beatrice, yet he pushes the "antidote" on her. He wants her to change into something other than the girl he knows, and that again doesn't resemble love in my opinion.
In "Rappaccini's Daughter," who loves more deeply, Beatrice or Giovanni?
It could be argued that Giovanni does not love Beatrice at all. Giovanni does not love and accept Beatrice as she is; he cannot look beyond the poisonous elements in her physical nature in order to recognize and embrace the goodness beyond. Moreover, he not only fails to accept her, he cruelly condemns and rejects an essential part of her being. He does not believe that Beatrice is worthy of his love unless a significant part of her is destroyed.
Giovanni loves the Beatrice he wants her to be, and he will live with her only outside the garden, her sustaining environment. Giovanni's blind selfishness is his defining characteristic.
Beatrice drinks the antidote to her poisonous nature at Giovanni's request, knowing that it will end her life. Her motivation for doing this could be interpreted in this way; she chose to die rather than live without Giovanni. However, it could be interpreted another way, a more significant one. Having loved him so deeply, Beatrice could not bear the disillusionment in realizing that it was Giovanni who was not worthy of love. Unlike Beatrice, his poisonous nature encompassed not only his body, but also his spirit.