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The Dual Aspects of Evil in “Rappaccini's Daughter”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Roy R. Male Jr.
Roy R. Male Jr.*
Affiliation:
Texas Technological College, Lubbock
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Extract

If we assume that recurrent images, structure, tone, and literary allusions contribute to the meaning of “Rappaccini's Daughter”— and students of Hawthorne will agree, I think, that such an assumption is valid—the traditional interpretation of the story as a warning against intellectual pride appears inadequate. Such an interpretation, as I hope to make clear in this paper, overlooks the basic paradox of Giovanni's position as he wavers between the two aspects of evil represented by Rappaccini and Baglioni. Achievement of a fully satisfactory reading is difficult, however, because this is Hawthorne's most complex story, one which presents what he elsewhere describes as “a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue than we witness in the outward world” (II, 377).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 1954 , pp. 99 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954

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References

1 For perceptive comments on “Rappaccini's Daughter,” see Hyatt H. Waggoner, Nathaniel Hawthorne: Selected Tales and Sketches (New York, 1950), p. xiv; and Richard H. Fogle, Hawthorne's Fiction (Norman, Okla., 1952), pp. 91-103.

2 Citations from Hawthorne in my text are to The Complete Works, ed. George P. Lathrop, 13 vols. (Boston, 1882-83).

3 Hawthorne (Boston, 1929), p. 138.

4 This comparison is not so farfetched as it may at first appear. Though “Young Goodman Brown” was written earlier, the two stories were published together in the Mosses and both deal with the same problem: the difficulty of retaining one's faith in a world notable for its ambiguous mixture of good and evil.

5 For evidence of Hawthorne's familiarity with Dante, see J. C. Matthews, “Hawthorne's Knowledge of Dante,” Univ. of Texas Stud. in Eng., xx (1940), 157-165.

6 This by-way is also mentioned in “The Celestial Railroad” (ii, 231).

7 Frank Davidson noted this parallel in “Hawthorne's Hive of Honey,” MLN, lxi (Jan. 1946), 14-21.

8 ix, 244. In this letter Hawthorne referred specifically to the claims of the mesmerists.

9 The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, trans. John A. Symonds, Mod. Library Ed., p. 54. For further evidence that Hawthorne was familiar with Cellini's memoirs, see the allusion in “The Virtuoso's Collection” (ii, 550). It seems highly probable that he derived the names of Lisabetta, Guasconti, and Baglioni from Cellini's book, and Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini may well be his combination of the names of the surgeon Giacomo and Raffaello Lapaccini.

10 Giovanni's comparison of Beatrice to a serpent reminds us of Adam's harsh rebuff of Eve: “Out of my sight, thou Serpent” (P.L. x.867). And Hawthorne's phrase “mist of evil,” cited above, may be a reminiscence of Satan's method of entering Eden.

11 “Hawthorne and The Faerie Queen,” PQ, xii (April 1933), 196-206.

12 Fogle has suggested the Jason-Medea story as a parallel, though not in connection with the sculptured portal (Hawthorne's Fiction, p. 102).