Essay on The Theme of Rappaccini’s Daughter -- Rappaccinis Daughter E

Rappaccinis Daughter The division In Nathaniel Hawthornes tale, Rappaccinis Daughter, the dominanat subject is the mephistophelian within mankind. This rise intends to explore, exemplify and develop this topic. Hyatt Waggoner in Nathaniel Hawthorne states Alienation is perhaps the theme he handles with greatest power. Insulation, he sometimes called it which suggests not only closing off but imperviousness. It is the opposite of that osmosis of being that Warren has written of, that ability to move and relate to others and the world. . . . it puts one outside the magic circle or the magnetised chain of humanity, where there is neither love nor reality (54). Waggoners theme of alienation does play a part in Rappaccinis Daughter in reference to the doctor and Beatrice, and Giovanni after he has been rendered evil by prolonged contact with Beatrice. But alienation is not, in the judgment of this reader, the dominant theme in the tale. The overriding theme would be the e vil residing within human beings, regardless of how attractive they appear outwardly. Everything he has to produce is related, finally, to that inward sphere (McPherson 68-69). Giovannis love for the beautiful daughter blinds him to unlike indications of her poisonous nature, to the evil nature of her father and to the intent of her father to charter Giovanni as a subject in his sinister experiment. At the windup his blindness is removed and he sees, with Beatrices help, the truth of the situation he sees the evil within man. The tale takes place in Padua, Italy, where a Naples schoolchild named Giovanni Guascanti has relocated in order to attend the medical school there. His modes... ...es Press, 1968. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Rappaccinis Daughter. ElectronicText Center. University of Virginia Library. http//etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=HawRapp&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public Kazin, Alfred. Introduction. Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York Fawcett Premier, 1966. McPherson, Hugo. Hawthornes Use of Mythology. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996. Waggoner, Hyatt. Nathaniel Hawthorne. In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press, 1968. Williams, Stanley T. Hawthornes Puritan Mind. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996.