Rappaccini's Daughter Essay: Finding the Heart in Rappaccini's Daughter

Finding the Heart in Rappaccini's Daughter

In Hawthorne's short story, "Rappaccini's Daughter", Rappaccini is ostensibly a cold, calculating scientist. A pure scientist who would willingly give his daughter, himself, or whatever else most precious to him "for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge" (1641). This leads most to believe that Rappaccini lacks any emotion and concern for his "scientific subjects" and their desires. This assumption, however, is incorrect. Rappaccini cares dearly for, if no one else, one person and is willing to use his science to meet her needs. This person is his own daughter. Upon Giovanni's angry outburst to Beatrice, Rappaccini says, "My science and the sympathy between thee and him have so wrought within his system that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women" (1655). Rappaccini clearly cares dearly for his daughter and is willing to use his science to make Giovanni compatible with Beatrice because he recognizes her human need for companionship.

The conclusion reached by a cursory read of "Rappaccini's Daughter" is that Dr. Rappaccini is an evil, cold, and calculating scientist with only his scientific advancement in mind. This conclusion stems from Professor Baglioni's portrait of him. By Professor Baglioni's account, Dr. Rappaccini "cares infinitely more for science than for mankind" (1641). The hints of poison in Beatrice's person and the poisonous vegetation in Dr. Rappaccini's garden seem to support this assumption. There is an obvious parallel between the beautiful flowers, their wonderful scents and Beatrice's beauty and scented breath. Professor...

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...and the love between her and Giovanni. He wanted only to be able to say, "My daughter, thou art no longer lonely in the world," and to see his beloved daughter happy, as is the wish of every parent for his child. Doctor Giacomo Rappaccini was not a cruel, bent, old man with an exclusive zeal for science and science alone. Rather, he was a "thunder stricken man of science" devastated by the horrible intolerance of one Professor Pietro Baglioni who, looking forth from the window of Dr. Rappaccini's house at the moment of Beatrice's death, "called loudly, in a tone of triumph [ . . . ] Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment!" (1655).

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Rappaccini's Daughter." The Tradition in American Literature Ed. George Perkins, et al, vol. 1, 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill Publishing Company, 1990. 1637 - 1655.