Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Rappaccini's Daughter is a short story about a young student called Giovanni who
falls in love with a girl called Beatrice. Unfortunately, the poison from her father
Rappaccini's garden has contaminated her. One touch from Beatrice and Giovanni
will die. While his friend Baglioni gives Giovanni the antidote to cure Beatrice to
cure her, his motives are from innocent.
The story begins as Giovanni arrives at his lodgings in Padua. It is the first time
that he has been to northern Italy - his family home is from the south - and his
naivety is obvious from the start. When his landlady, Lisabetta, tells him to put his
head out of the window to feel the northern sun, he does as she says, but is
immediately disappointed. The sun nowhere near as hot as it is at home. Yet
turning his head, he sees something that impresses him even more: a garden full of
beautiful plants and flowers.
Lisabetta tells Giovanni the garden belongs to a scientist called Rappaccini - a man,
she claims, known as far as Naples. Giovanni is impressed and waits at his window
to catch a sight of the great man. It is not long before he arrives. Rappacini is a
dark, ill-looking, and cold-hearted figure. His only aspect that impresses Giovanni is
the way that he studiously and very carefully looks at the flowers. He is obviously a
man of great intellect. Giovanni is unprepared, however, for his daughter Beatrice.
Walking into the garden like an angel, she is breath of fresh air and unlike her
father, treats the flowers like her friends.
The next day Giovanni introduces himself to the family friend and university
professor, Professor Baglioni. He knows Rappaccini personally and warns Giovanni,
to stay away from him. Rappaccini has no interest in humankind. His interest is to
create increasingly dangerous poisons from his plants. The plants, he claims, have
contaminated his daughter and she cannot leave the garden. What Baglioni does
not tell Giovanni is that Rappaccini is his rival. They hate each other.
Giovanni is in love with Beatrice and despite warnings, he buys her a bouquet of
flowers. He can't go into the garden so he waits for at his window. Finally, she
dances into view, smelling the flowers and approaching, with reverence, a purple
plant next to a fountain. As she lifts the plant to smell its flowers, a dewdrop falls
from a petal and onto the back of a passing lizard. The lizard immediately dies.
Giovanni can't stop thinking about Beatrice, wandering the Padua streets in a daze.
One day he passes Baglioni without saying a word and the professor has to grab
him to get his attention. As the same time, Rappaccini walks past them. He greets
Baglioni with open contempt, but looks upon Giovanni with great interest. Baglioni
is worried. Rappaccini, he tells Giovanni, maybe interested in him as a subject for
one of his experiments.
On his return home, Lisabetta approaches Giovanni excitedly. She tells him she has
found a secret entrance into Rappaccini's garden. After Baglioni's warning, he is
automatically mistrustful, but eventually his love for Beatrice overrides his
suspicions and he follows his landlady to the garden.
At last, in Rappaccini's garden, Giovanni looks at the flowers with interest and to his
delight, Beatrice comes into to view. She is ecstatic to see him. She receives few
visitors and can't stop talking. Giovanni high on love and his beautiful surroundings
walks to the purple flower that rises from the edge of a marble fountain in the
center of the garden. Beatrice screams like a gunshot. Whatever he does, she
screams, he should never touch the plants. She is immune to the plants' poisons,
but if Giovanni touches one, he could easily die. Before he leaves Giovanni sees
Rappaccini, looking on from the garden entrance.
After weeks of not seeing him, Baglioni visits Giovanni at his lodgings. Immediately
he can see his friend is hopelessly in love. He warns him that Beatrice maybe
leading him to a trap, but has to back off when Giovanni reacts badly to his
negative words. Instead, Baglioni offers him a silver phial. inside the phial, there is
a liquid that he says will cure Beatrice if she drinks it.
Before Giovanni goes away with the antidote to Beatrice, he looks into the mirror.
He looks happier than ever. A spider is crawling over the mirror and he move
forward for a closer look. When he is inches away, the spider drops dead. His
breath has killed it. He is contaminated with the poison from the garden.
In the garden, Giovanni questions Beatrice of her motives. She is horrified. She
claims that she is completely innocent and to prove herself she drinks the antidote
from the silver phial. At the same time, her father enters the garden. He tells her
she is no longer alone and to consummate her relationship with Giovanni, she
should push one of the purple petals to his bosom. Beatrice, however, is dying. She
asks her father why he has stopped her from being the woman she wanted and
needed to be, but her father doesn't want to hear it. He berates her for choosing to
be weak. As she dies, Baglioni's face appears at Giovanni's window with a mixture
of horror and triumph.

Type of Work and Year of Publication

.......“Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story with Gothic overtones. It first appeared in
the United States Democratic Review (Volume 15, Issue 78) in December 1844. In 1846, it
appeared in a Hawthorne collection of stories and sketches, Mosses From an Old Manse.,
published in New York by Wiley and Putnam. (Hawthorne lived in an "old manse" in Concord,
Mass., from 1842 to 1845.)

Setting
.......The action takes place in the nineteenth century in Padua, a major city in northern Italy.
Most of the scenes are set in a garden cultivated by Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini and his daughter,
Beatrice, and in an apartment with a view onto the garden. The occupant of the apartment is
Giovanni Guasconti, a medical student at the University of Padua. Other scenes take place on
the streets of Padua and at the university, where Guasconti meets a professor of medicine. The
university, founded in 1222, maintains Europe's oldest botanical garden, established in 1545. 

Characters
Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini (pronunciation: JAHK uh mo Rahp uh CHEE ne): Renowned but
sinister Padua physician who cultivates highly poisonous plants in his garden with the help of
his daughter. He then attempts to extract medical cures from the poisons.  
Giovanni Guasconti (pronunciation: Joh VAHN e Gwa SKOHN te):
Handsome Neapolitan student enrolled in the medical curriculum at the
University of Padua. He lives in an apartment overlooking Rappaccini's
garden and makes the acquaintance of the doctor's daughter, whose beauty
and mysterious powers fascinate him.  
Beatrice Rappaccini: Daughter of Dr. Rappaccini. Over the years, her father
has exposed her to toxins in his plants and flowers as part of his
experimentation. As a result, she becomes poisonous like the flowers, capable of killing an
insect or an animal merely by breathing on it. However, she herself is immune to the effects of
the toxins. She lives a life of isolation in the doctor's house and garden. 
Dr. Pietro Baglioni (pronunciation: PYET ro Bal YOHN e): Professor of medicine at the
University of Padua to whom Giovanni Guasconti reports with a letter of introduction from his
father, a friend of the professor. Baglioni and Dr. Rappaccini are professional rivals and bitter
enemies, one striving to outdo the other in medical achievements.  
Old Lisabetta (pronunciation: Leez uh BET uh): Housekeeper in the mansion where Giovanni
Guasconti rents an apartment. She shows Giovanni through corridors that lead to a secret
entrance to Dr. Rappaccini's garden. 

Plot Summary 
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2009

.......Before beginning his medical studies at the University of Padua in northern Italy, a young
man from southern Italy takes an apartment on an upper floor of an old mansion that once
belonged to a family of nobles. He recalls that one member of the family was among the lost
souls whom Dante depicted in the Inferno of his Divine Comedy. This recollection, together with
the dreariness of the chamber and the uneasiness the young man feels at being away from
home, occasions a heavy sigh from him. 
.......His name is Giovanni Guasconti, a resident of Naples. His good looks have won him the
admiration of Lisabetta, an old woman who is trying to give his room a livable atmosphere. Upon
hearing his sigh, she suggests that he look out the window at the bright sunshine. When he
does so, he notices a well-kept garden that Lisabetta says belongs to a neighbor, the famous
physician Giacomo Rappaccini, who cultivates the plants in the garden to make medicines. His
daughter helps him tend it. After completing her chores, Lisabetta leaves. 
.......Still contemplating the garden, Giovanni notices the crumbling remains of a marble fountain
in the middle of the garden, water cheerfully burbling from it. Surrounding it are plants and
flowers, some in urns bearing carvings and some in ordinary pots. One shrub in a marble vase
in the fountain pool displays beautiful purple blossoms. Another thriving plant has wound itself
up and around a statue of Vertumnus. A tall man appears—“emaciated, sallow, and sickly
looking, dressed in a scholar's black garb." He examines the plants closely but does not smell
them or touch them except to remove dead leaves with thick protective gloves. It is as if they are
evil. When he examines the shrub with purple blossoms, he wears a mask covering his nostrils
and mouth. Then he draws back from it and calls for his daughter, Beatrice.  
.......A beautiful young woman comes out, more striking than the most radiant of the flowers.
Speaking of the shrub, Rappaccini tells tells Beatrice, “[S]hattered as I am, my life might pay the
penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand. Henceforth, this plant must be
consigned to your sole charge." Gladly accepting the task, Beatrice speaks to the flower, calling
it a “sister" that she will care for tenderly. In return, the flower is to allow Beatrice to breathe in
its fragrance, which the young lady refers to as “the breath of life." She then tends to the flower
lovingly without wearing a mask or gloves. As evening draws on and Rappaccini and his
daughter exit the scene, Giovanni's fancy suggests to him that the girl and the garden are
“fraught with some strange peril." 
.......In the morning, however, Giovanni's spirits soar when he looks down upon the garden as its
dewdrops reflect the brilliant sunlight. Gone are his ominous fantasies of the previous evening.
He thinks himself lucky to have a room that overlooks such floral magnificence. 
.......At the university, he presents himself with a letter of introduction to Dr. Pietro Baglioni, a
highly respected professor of medicine. The two of them dine together and engage in
conversation enlivened by the effect of wine on Baglioni. Wondering whether the professor
knows Rappaccini, Giovanni mentions the latter's name. Baglioni praises Rappaccini for his
skills, saying only one other physician in all of Italy can rival his learning. (Here, Baglioni is
alluding to himself.) But he adds that he has “certain grave objections to [Rappaccini's]
professional character." In particular, he says, Rappaccini is coldly scientific, regarding his
patients as objects for experiments rather than as human beings. He would even jeopardize his
own life to add a morsel of knowledge to the medical books. Rappaccini, he says, makes deadly
poisons from plants, then extracts from the poisons cures for afflictions. Baglioni acknowledges
that occasionally one of Rappaccini's concoctions works. 
......."But, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni," Baglioni says, "he should receive little
credit for such instances of success—they being probably the work of chance—but should be
held strictly accountable for his failures, which may justly be considered his own work." 
.......Listening intently, Giovanni is unaware that Baglioni and Rappaccini have long been rivals
in a struggle for dominance in the medical field. So far, Rappaccini has the upper hand. When
Giovanni asks the professor about Rappaccini's daughter, Baglioni replies that her extraordinary
beauty is well known to all the young men in Padua, although few of them have actually seen
her. But he also says she has learned her father's art so well that she could become a professor
herself.  
.......While returning to the mansion, Giovanni buys a bouquet of flowers. After arriving in his
chambers, he goes straight to the window to look again upon the garden. In a few moments, the
young lady appears and goes to the shrub with purple flowers, opens her arms, and gently
embraces it. She then picks one of its flowers. At that moment, Giovanni notices an orange
lizard or chameleon on the walkway near the flower. From the broken stem of the picked flower
moisture falls on the creature's head. It suffers a spasm and dies. Beatrice, feeling sorry for the
creature, makes a sign of the cross, then arranges the deadly flower inside the décolletage of
her dress. No harm comes to her. A moment later, a winged insect hovers about her, then falls
and dies. It had not even come in contact with her. 
.......When Giovanni makes a slight movement at the window, Beatrice looks up and sees the
handsome young man. Impulsively, he throws her the bouquet of flowers and asks her to wear
them for his sake. She thanks him, picks up the flowers, and hurries toward the entrance to her
house. Before she disappears from view, Giovanni notices that the flowers are withering. He
then doubts his perception. From the window, how could he possibly distinguish a dying flower
from a fresh one?  
.......Days pass and Giovanni does not go to the window, for he does not know what to make of
this woman. She is both lovely and dangerous. Yes, she fascinates him, but her strange powers
also horrify him.  
.......One day, Professor Baglioni stops him on a street to talk with him. Just as he is about to
speak, a man in black approaches. He is stooped and has a sickly complexion. But his face
exhibits an energy of mind. It is Rappaccini. As he passes, he and Baglioni nod coldly to each
other. Rappaccini also gazes momentarily at Giovanni before moving on. Baglioni asks
Giovanni whether Rappaccini has ever seen him.  
.......“Not that I know," Giovanni says. 
.......Baglioni then asserts that he knows Rappaccini has seen Giovanni.  
.......“I know that look of his," Baglioni says.  
.......It is the same look that Rappaccini casts upon a mouse or a butterfly that he is examining
after killing it with the poisonous fragrance of a flower. When Baglioni implies that Rappaccini's
daughter is helping her father study Giovanni, the young man becomes angry and walks on.
Baglioni stares after him and decides—out of his friendship for Giovanni's father and out of a
desire to punish Rappaccini—to foil Rappaccini's plans. 
.......When Giovanni arrives at his residence, old Lisabetta greets him and whispers to him that
there is a door in the house that opens into Rappacini's garden. He gives her a gold coin, and
she leads him through passages that end at the door to the garden. Giovanni enters the garden.
The doctor and his daughter are nowhere to be seen. Giovanni then begins scrutinizing the
plants. Although they are beautiful, they seem unnatural; he concludes that they are
experimental crossbreeds. Several plants look plainly artificial, “glowing only with an evil
mockery of beauty."  
.......Beatrice enters the garden. To Giovanni's relief, she does not question him about his
presence there. Instead, she says she understands why he would wish to take a close look at
the garden. Having heard that she is an expert in horticulture, Giovanni says, he asks her to
instruct him in the cultivation and properties of the plants. But she denies having special 
knowledge of them. 
.......“I know no more of them than their hues and perfume," she says. 
.......Giovanni smells a fragrance when she speaks. Is it her breath or the odor of the flowers?  
.......They walk through the garden as Beatrice asks him about life in the city and about himself,
his home, his family, and his friends. The way she frames her questions reveals an ignorance
about the world outside the garden. It is as if she has never ventured beyond the garden. They
stop at the fountain before the shrub with purple flowers. Giovanni smells a fragrance like that
which moments before had seemed to issue from Beatrice. 
.......Giovanni makes a move toward the shrub as if to pluck a flower. She grasps his hand and
forces it back, saying, “Touch it not! Not for thy life! It is fatal!" 
.......She runs back to her house, hiding her face. At the entrance to the garden is Dr.
Rappaccini, who has been watching the scene.  
.......When Giovanni returns inside, he abandons all his misgivings about Beatrice. She is gentle,
admirable, lovable. He thinks about her through the night and at dawn lapses into sleep. Not
long afterward, a bright rising sun awakens him—to pain! It is his right hand, where Beatrice had
gripped it. On his skin is a purple imprint of her fingers. But Giovanni does not make the
connection between it and Beatrice. Instead, he wonders what thing injured him and wraps his
hand in a handkerchief. Thereafter, he continues to visit the garden. Beatrice, looking for him,
always comes out. At times, she comes out first and calls for him. But they never kiss, never
even hold hands. Whenever he reaches out to her, she keeps her distance—sadly, with a look
of desolation. 
.......One morning, Baglioni visits him. He tells Giovanni a story about an Indian prince who
presented a gift to Alexander the Great: a beautiful woman whose breath was a rich perfume.
She had been nourished since birth on poisons that rendered her more dangerous than any
plant or animal. Giovanni pronounces the tale nonsense. The professor then says he has
noticed a strong fragrance in the apartment, then adds, “Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I
have heard, tinctures his medicaments with odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless,
likewise, the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would minister to her patients with draughts as
sweet as a maiden's breath. But wo [woe] to him that sips them!" 
.......Baglioni's observation reawakens suspicions in Giovanni, but he suppresses them and
accuses the professor of maligning Beatrice. But Baglioni insists that the young woman is
poisonous, like the Indian princess in his story. Her father heartlessly uses her in his
experiments, Baglioni says, and now he wants to use Giovanni. However, Baglioni continues, it
may not be too late to save Beatrice. He then places a silver phial on a table, one which he says
contains a liquid with the power to restore her to normalcy.  
.......After the professor leaves, Giovanni struggles with himself over what to do. One part of him
denies that Beatrice is anything but normal; he had to be mistaken about the withering flowers,
the lizard, and the insect. Another part of him worries that she is indeed poisonous. Deciding to
conduct a test, he goes out and buys a bouquet of flowers still fresh with morning dew. He plans
to present them to Beatrice. After returning to his apartment, he notices that the flowers are
beginning to droop. Could it be that he now has poison in his breath? Seeing a spider near the
window, he breathes on it. It convulses and dies. Giovanni is shocked.  
.......At that very moment, Beatrice calls to him from the garden. He now feels vengeful toward
her. When he goes down and sees her, this feeling begins to diminish. However, he remains
sullen, suspicious. Beatrice senses something is wrong. They walk in the garden. When they
stand before the marble fountain, Giovanni finds himself eagerly breathing in the fragrance of
the purple flowers. He asks Beatrice about it. She tells him her father created it. 
.......“[A]t the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang from the soil, the offspring of his
science. . . ." she says.  “I grew up and blossomed with the plant, and was nourished with its
breath."  
.......Anger builds in Giovanni when she tells him that she was cut off from people until she met
him. Giovanni can no longer contain his rage. 
......."And finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me, likewise, from all the warmth of
life, and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror . . . Thou hast filled my veins with
poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself!
" 
.......Beatrice, deeply hurt, does not understand what he is saying. He then breathes on garden
insects to demonstrate for her the evil power conferred on him. When the insects begin to fall
dead, she shrieks and says she did nothing to cause the change in him.  
.......“But my father!—he has united us in this fearful sympathy . . . Not for a world of bliss would
I have done it!" 
.......Giovanni's anger subsides. He then wonders whether it is possible to rid himself and
Beatrice of their terrible affliction. Baglioni's phial—it could be their salvation. When he produces
it, she says she will drink from it first, cautioning him to await the result before he drinks. As she
sips the liquid, her father enters the garden. He is happy to see Beatrice and Giovanni together,
believing that they are now united as creatures of his scientific arts. 
......."My daughter," Rappaccini says, "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." 
.......Beatrice asks her father why he has made her life so miserable. But he says he gave her a
gift, a mighty power. Beatrice replies that she would rather have been loved, not feared.
However, what he has done no longer matters, she says, for she is now leaving this world. To
Giovanni, she says that his hateful words of a few moments ago—words that wounded her heart
—no longer matter either. She adds, “Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy
nature than in mine?" 
.......As Beatrice dies, Baglioni, who had reentered Giovanni's apartment, calls from the window,
"Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment?" 
.

.
.
Main Theme: Corruption
.......Corruption is the main theme of “Rappaccini's" daughter. Among the definitions of
corruption are these: (1) wickedness, evil, malignity; (2) contamination, pollution, decay.
Hawthorne focuses on both kinds of corruption, contrasting one with the other in order to make
clear this truth: that the more heinous form of corruption is the first kind, which lodges in the
human heart and intellect.  
.......The theme of corruption begins to manifest itself when old Lisabetta refers to the “strange
flowers" that grow in the garden and the narrator mentions plants that “crept serpent-like along
the ground." When Rappaccini appears in the garden to study the plants, the narrator observes
that “the man's demeanor was that of one walking among malignant influences, such as savage
beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one moment of license,
would wreak upon him some terrible fatality." 
.......But the real evil is not in the garden plants; it is in Rappaccini. He is a canker that generates
corruption. He first corrupts his soul, committing the father of all sins, pride, by defying God and
nature in order to aggrandize his reputation through experiments that turn his garden into an evil
Eden. His experimentation also corrupts his body, which becomes feeble and sickly, and
transforms his innocent daughter into a poisonous agent whose very breath can kill.  
.......His evildoing extends also to old Lisabetta, whom he apparently uses as his cat's paw to
ensnare Giovanni—via Beatrice's charms—for his experiments. When and how he persuaded
or forced Lisabetta to serve him is unknown, but her complicity in his scheming becomes
apparent when she informs Giovanni of a secret door to the garden. Giovanni reacts with this
thought: “[T]his interposition of old Lisabetta might perchance be connected with the intrigue,
whatever were its nature, in which the Professor seemed to suppose that Doctor Rappaccini
was involving him [Giovanni]."  
.......In spite of his misgivings, Giovanni enters the garden to strike up a relationship with the
lovely Beatrice. Over time, his contact with her and the noxious perfumes in the garden corrupt
his body, turning it into a reservoir of poison. Outraged, he impugns Beatrice as the corrupting
agent.

......."Accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "And finding thy solitude
wearisome, thou hast severed me, likewise, from all the warmth of life, and enticed me into thy
region of unspeakable horror . . . Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as
hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself—a world's wonder of hideous
monstrosity! Now—if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others—let us join our
lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!"
.......His tirade against the young woman reveals that the real poison that befouls him lies within
his heart. 
.......Beatrice then assures Giovanni that she never intended to harm him. “I dreamed only to
love thee," she says, “and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass away, leaving but
thine image in mine heart. . . But my father!—he has united us in this fearful sympathy."
.......When Giovanni reveals Baglioni's phial as an antidote for the contaminants in their bodies,
she says, “Give it to me! . . . I will drink but do thou await the result." Her
response indicates that she suspects foul play but is willing to test the
antidote on herself. If it turns out to be a fatal poison, only she will die.
Giovanni will live. Whether Giovanni's love for Beatrice is as strong as her
love for him—or whether he even experiences love rather than infatuation—is
unlikely. After all, he curses her in the belief that she willingly contaminated
him, a development revealing that he lacks faith in her. His outrage suggests that his is a “fair
weather" passion. When things go right, he will love her. When things go wrong, he will withhold
his love. Beatrice apparently senses that his love is insincere. When  she is dying, she tells him,
“ Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart—but they, too, will fall
away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?"
.......And what of Professor Baglioni? Is he too corrupt? The evidence suggests that he is. He
provides a phial of liquid that he says will restore Beatrice to normalcy. Instead, it kills her within
minutes. One may argue that his purpose in providing the poison was to protect Giovanni, the
son of his good friend in Naples. But other evidence suggests that his motive was a mixture of
revenge and ambition. Remember, he has been competing with Rappaccini for recognition as
the best physician in Italy, as he implies when he tells Giovanni, “The truth is, our worshipful
Doctor Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty—with perhaps one single
exception . . . ." The “single exception" is of course Baglioni—or so Baglioni appears to think. 
.......That Baglioni and Rappaccini are bitter rivals is well known: “[T]here was a professional
warfare of long continuance between him and Doctor Rappaccini," the narrator says, “in which
the latter was generally thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be inclined to judge
for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical
department of the University of Padua."
.......It is clear, then, that Baglioni and Rappaccini despise each other. To get the better of
Rappaccini, Baglioni plans to poison Beatrice. He muses to himself: “This daughter of his! It
shall be looked to. Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I may foil you where you little dream of
it!" 
.......After Beatrice dies, Baglioni peers down from the window and, as the narrator says, “called
loudly, in a tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunder-stricken man of science:
"Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment?"

Other Themes
Exceeding the Bounds of Morality

.......Rappaccini far exceeds the bounds of morality when he ruins the life of his daughter—and
jeopardizes his own life—for the sake of achieving scientific breakthroughs. His fictional
research foreshadows  the experimentation of historical figures such as the infamous Dr.
Joseph Mengele. a member of the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene, founded
in Nazi Germany in 1934. Mengele performed cruel experiments on live human beings in the
Birkenau concentration camp, where he served as an SS officer beginning in 1943. Mengele,
known as the “Angel of Death," was attempting to further his knowledge of twins and of fertility
techniques. Jewish inmates became virtual guinea pigs, enduring great pain and suffering. Here
in the 21st Century scientists are experimenting with the possibility of cloning human beings, an
activity which theologians generally condemn as unethical and immoral.

Love

.......Although Dr. Rappaccini corrupts the body of Beatrice, her soul remains pristine. She is a
gentle young woman who treats even the highly poisonous plant in the marble vase with
tenderness. After meeting Giovanni, she falls in love with him. Hers is genuine love that sets no
conditions or makes no demands. When Giovanni reveals Baglioni's phial as an antidote for the
contaminants in their bodies, she says, “Give it to me! . . . I will drink but do thou await the
result." Her response indicates that she suspects foul play but is willing to test the antidote on
herself. If it turns out to be a fatal poison, only she will die. Giovanni will live. Whether Giovanni's
love for Beatrice is as strong as her love for him—or whether he even experiences love rather
than infatuation—is open to question. After all, he curses her in the belief that she willingly
contaminated him, a development revealing that he lacks faith in her. His outrage suggests that
his is a “fair weather" passion. When things go right, he will love her. When things go wrong, he
will withhold his love. Beatrice apparently senses that his love is insincere. When she is dying,
she tells him, “Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart—but they,
too, will fall away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than
in mine?" 

Hatred

.......Rappaccini and Baglioni, rivals in science, despise each other. One of the goals of
Rappaccini's research is to discover medical breakthroughs that will elevate his reputation
above Baglioni's. Baglioni retaliates with the phial of poison that kills Beatrice.

Isolation

.......Because her father has turned Beatrice into a poisonous agent, she remains isolated in her
house and garden. Her ignorance of the world outside and her lack of contact with its
inhabitants have rendered her a mere child in terms of cultural and social growth, as the
following passage attests:

[Beatrice] became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the
[Giovanni], not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have felt, conversing with a
voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her experience of life had been confined within the
limits of that garden. She talked now about matters as simple as the day-light or summer-
clouds, and now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's distant home, his
friends, his mother, and his sisters; questions indicating such seclusion, and such lack of
familiarity with modes and forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. 
Artificiality

.......Almost all the plants in Rappaccini's garden appear unnatural to Giovanni. And, he says,
“Several . . . would have shocked a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness,
indicating that there had been such commixture, and, as it were, adultery of various vegetable
species, that the production was no longer of God's making, but the monstrous offspring of
man's depraved fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty." The artificiality of the
flowers reflects the artificiality of Giovanni's affection for Beatrice. It is insincere. It also reflects
the artificiality of Dr. Rappaccini's motives in seeking breakthrough medical cures. His primary
interest is not in saving lives but in enhancing his reputation and satisfying his coldly intellectual
curiosity.

Exploitation

.......Dr. Rappaccini exploits Beatrice in his medical research. Giovanni exploits her for her
charms; his professed love for her seems insincere. Dr. Baglioni kills Beatrice to spite
Rappaccini. 

Curiosity

.......To varying degrees, curiosity drives the actions of Dr. Rappaccini (who seeks knowledge
about the curative powers of poison), Giovanni Guasconti (who seeks to know more about the
strange but lovely young woman in the garden), and Beatrice (who seeks knowledge of the
world outside the garden). 

Point of View
.......Hawthorne wrote the story in third-person point of view, enabling the narrator to reveal the
thoughts of Giovanni Guasconti.

Foreshadowing
.......The following quoted sentence foreshadows Giovanni Guasconti's contamination with the
poisonous perfumes: "Night was already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed
from the plants, and steal upward past the open window [of Giovanni's apartment]. . . ." 

. 

Climax
.......The climax occurs when Baglioni's "antidote" fatally poisons Beatrice.