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Book beginning: page 7

Introduction

• The opening line sounds as though it is from a tale or a fable, and reminisces the “old classic” that Baglioni tells later on (p30). There are also various mentions throughout the book about this type of story (p15, 31) which helps to put emphasis on this element.
• The fact that the short story is called Rappaccini’s Daughter and not “Beatrice”, shows the prominence of science above all else in the story, as she is the scientist’s daughter before her own person.
• If Giovanni had something better to do when he reached the lodgings, there is a good chance the story would not have taken place: “Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the garden beneath his window” (p8).

Gothic presence

• Gothic elements: scientific experiments, heightened beauty, high gloomy chamber, old edifice, mysterious garden, strange flowers, poisons, family long since extinct (p7), medicines as potent as charms (p8).
• Gothic characters: Rappaccini - old decrepit character, scientist; Beatrice and Giovanni - superhuman characters.
• Gothic setting: The mansion is connected to Dante’s Inferno (p7).
• Humans can make anything sinister: “it was strangely frightful to the young man’s imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils” (p10).
• It is hard for the average person to believe the truth of Beatrice’s condition which can be seen when Baglioni says there are “other absurd rumors […] not worth talking about” (p15).
• Baglioni always knew the “absurd rumors” (p15) were most likely true about Beatrice, as he had seen Rappaccini bent over insects which “in pursuance of some experiment, he has killed by the perfume of a flower” (p21).
• There does not appear to be any other zone of outdoor plant life in the area, only this garden, which means it is quite out of place: “[an insect] had, perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among those antique haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini’s shrubs had lured it from afar” (p17).

The Garden

• The plants appeared to have different grades according to how they were potted: marble vase, urns and common garden pots (p8/9).
• The garden was about as sinister as it could get, where some plants “crept serpent-like along the ground” (p9).
• The flower is addictive for Beatrice and whenever she is in its presence she is drawn in (p11, 16).
• How far is too far in scientific experimentation? The story talks about the production of the garden as “no longer of God’s making, but the monstrous offspring of man’s depraved fancy” (p24).

Giovanni and the garden

• Giovanni was instantly attracted by the garden looking upon it from his window as soon as he arrived at the lodgings (p8), but soon it became almost a need for him to look at, “Giovanni’s first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden” (p12).
• Originally Giovanni “had the privilege of overlooking” the lovely garden, but it soon became a curse (p12).
• Giovanni “was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter”, but the rational has no place here (p12).

Beatrice

• Beatrice had been touched by evil, but not become evil.
• The description of the fountain in the garden resembles Beatrice: “so woefully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever” (p8).
• Beatrice is stronger and more resilient than her father as “it was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most sedulously avoided” (p11). However, she was still under his power and guidance.
• Beatrice’s only “friend” is the plant that took her freedom away, “she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to embrace it” (p11).
• After so much daily death around Beatrice of flowers and insects (p16), did she become used to it and that is why she was so calm whilst dying?
• It was not Beatrice’s choice to be limited to a life in the garden: “I have grown up among these flowers, I know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and sometimes methinks I would fain rid myself of even that small knowledge” (p25).
• Beatrice says “believe nothing of me save what you see with your own eyes” (p25), she wanted to be judged on truth, on who she really was.
• Beatrice was an innocent young lady who was tainted by men: “a fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni’s consciousness like the light of truth itself” (p25).
• Beatrice is the embodiment of a flower (p26). She was even treated as the poisonous flower was (p29).
• Beatrice has been completely cut off from the world, “evidently her experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden,” and even though she lacked “familiarity with modes and forms” (p26) she was still so gentle and well educated.
• Beatrice is almost living moments with Giovanni that should have happened in her childhood, but due to being cut off from the world and all of its inhabitants, was unable to do so: she “flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancy – as if they were such playmates still” (p29).
• Beatrice died untouched and therefore pure (p38).
• Beatrice’s capabilities make her a monster, although she is gentle and beautiful: “forget there ever crawled on earth such a monster as poor Beatrice” (p38).
• Beatrice’s body was “evil” but her soul was good: “though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is God’s creature” (p39).

Rappaccini

• Baglioni’s description of Rappaccini was as follows: “He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge” (p13).
• Over the years, Rappaccini has been infected by so many experiments and so much exposure to poison that he has “the infirm voice of a person affected with inward disease” (p10).
• Baglioni said to Giovanni that Rappaccini was “a man who might hereafter chance to hold [Giovanni’s] life and death in his hands” (p13). Because for those who knew Rappaccini, no other outcome was possible.

The Rappaccini family dynamic

• Except for her father, the plant is the only family Beatrice has: “I grew up and blossomed with the plant and was nourished with its breath. It was my sister, and I loved it with a human affection” (p37).
• There is no mention of the mother. Did she meet a tragic end and this is the reason why Rappaccini over protects his daughter?
• Giovanni says to Baglioni “I know not how dearly this physician [Rappaccini] may love his art; but surely there is one object more dear to him. He has a daughter” (p14). It could be considered that Beatrice and science were a close tie for importance to the scientist, but some could argue that Giovanni was right, and he held slightly more love in his heart for Beatrice.
• To counteract what Giovanni had originally said about the relationship between Rappaccini and his daughter, Baglioni says “her father, was not restrained by natural affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as the victim of his insane zeal for science” (p32). But again, it could be argued that he was only trying to protect her.
• Even when dying the father showed little emotion towards Beatrice. However, securing a love for her and motioning a blessing on the two of them as if they were both his children; and trying to protect her from any harm in the first place, shows a deep love (p40).
• Rappaccini would have secured Beatrice’s love for her and protection, had his plan have worked out, however, upon taking the contents of the vile, she perished (40/1).

Love story

• Giovanni was never pure enough for Beatrice’s love, as the text says, Giovanni “had not a deep heart” (p19).
• Beatrice says “for the first time in my life, I had forgotten thee” (p27) when she had been walking with Giovanni and then came across the flower, this is the first indication of having truly fallen in love.
• After Giovanni had found the fingerprints on his hand, he “wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice” (p28). This indicates that he knew she was not evil, even though he knew she had been the one to make the marks.
• When Baglioni relates the old classic he had read, it resembles the love affair between Giovanni and Beatriz so perfectly that it turns their story into a fairytale (p30/1).
• Giovanni tried to remain loyal to his love for Beatrice “with a true lover’s perfect faith” (p32) when confronted by Baglioni, but alas, it was only appearances that he managed as he later left Beatrice’s heart like lead (p41).

Beatrice’s death or Baglioni’s triumph

• Why did Giovanni blindly trust Baglioni that the antidote was to help cure Beatrice back to a healthy life? Was it an abuse of power or trust on Baglioni’s part?
• Since Beatrice told Giovanni to wait and see the effects of the antidote (p40), did she suspect death or know there was no cure?
• In the end, Beatrice perished “at the feet of her father and Giovanni” (p41), as indifferent to them as the insects which had perished at her own (p16/7).
• Baglioni watched Beatrice die with a cry of triumph (p41), but the damage was already done to Giovanni, so where was his triumph?
• By Baglioni’s reaction, does he not realise that he has just killed someone?
• Beatrice died young and beautiful, and would have gone down in history never known as anything else.

The aftermath: Part 1: Giovanni’s poisonous change

• When Giovanni breathed on the spider for a second time killing it, he “knew not whether he were wicked, or only desperate” (p35). Showing that at this point he was lost, not even he knew his intentions anymore.
• Giovanni did have the right to feel some hatred towards Beatrice when he smiled bitterly at her (p38), however, he was warned on more than one occasion by Baglioni about the dangers of getting too close to Rappaccini.
• Is it different for Giovanni when he becomes poisonous than it was for Beatrice, as he had known the outside world all his life?

The aftermath: Part 2: Beatrice’s death

• What did Giovanni do once he had become poisonous and was left without Beatrice?
• Even though Rappaccini was protecting Beatrice from anyone who may be mightier than her by infiltrating her essence with poison (p40/1), it was as it always is, the innocent beautiful female paying the price. She paid for Rappaccini’s unethical experimentation and Giovanni’s infatuation but lack of real love.
• Giovanni was said not to have been entirely good (p19), and even Beatrice questions him at the end saying “was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?” (p41). And now, after being infected with the poison, he has become extremely powerful, a quite deadly weapon against any life.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Rappaccini’s Daughter. Great Britain: Createspace Independent Pub, 2012.