Rappaccini's Daughter

7 Pages 1836 Words

The Garden of Good and Evil
(Rappaccini’s Daughter)


Rappaccini’s daughter is a deeply symbolic story. It contains many
references to mythology and other works. However, I would like to address the
story of Rappaccini’s Daughter, the fable of Giovanni and Beatrice as an analogy of
Adam and Eve. Also, another interpretation of the story is worth notice: three men
and a woman. All three men have their purposes for and judgments of Beatrice. All
three men project corruption on an innocent, and imbue her with evil that really
does not exist within her.
On the surface, the analogy to the Bible is clear: Rappaccini as God,
Giovanni and Beatrice as Adam and Eve in the Garden, Baglioni as Satan, lurking
around trying to act upon and influence the characters in the Garden. The tree of
life and death, the eternal fountain of purity flowing. However, the parallels to the
biblical Garden of Eden can also be determined as quite the opposite of their
equivalents in the Bible. Instead of a tree of life; the shrub of death. Instead of the
innocent companions; fearful accomplices. Instead of a benevolent God; a
malevolent Father, his bent purposes imposed on the innocent and unsuspecting
inhabitants of the Garden.
The garden and its central highlight, the purple flowered shrub, resembling
the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life, are the central scheme around which the
story revolves. The shrub is at once enticing and forbidding, beautiful yet dreadful.
The same terms are applied to Beatrice, “What is this being? Beautiful shall I call
her, or inexpressibly terrible?” (1753) In Giovanni’s dream, “Flower and maiden
were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some strange peril in either
shape.” (1750) The ruined fountain, with the water still gushing forth, lies in the
background and is used by Beatrice to water the bush. Its ceaselessly flowing purity
is used to nourish the venom...