Warner Stephanie English 112 Lindsey Milillo 5 April 2006 Writer's Memo The purpose of my paper was to analyze the monsters in "Rappaccini's Daughter" to show how the monsters as metaphor theme works in stories. Writing this paper was fairly easy. I had a hard time at first coming up with exactly how to start my paper. It was not hard, after I got started, to identify who the monsters are and what they represent in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter". I enjoyed analyzing this text because it was easy for me to see the underlying power theme Hawthorne created. The thing I did have a hard time with was deciding which quotes would be good to use with the claims I made. I also had a hard time incorporating the quotes, I finally decided to use, into my paper in a manner that flowed nicely. I think my transitions were good, and that my ideas flow from one to another nicely. Power Trip Every story has an underlying theme the author wants to get across to the reader. Some authors choose to use different events, places, and characters to get their theme across to the reader, but others choose to uses monsters. Stories that contain a monster figure have a meaning behind the monster. The monster is usually a physical embodiment for fear or other feelings such as xenophobia, racism, the unknown, mortality, spiritual issues, philosophical issues, extreme states of emotion, dreams, reason vs. irrationality, desire, and or ambivalence. In the story "Rappaccini's Daughter" Nathaniel Hawthorne
Warner 2 uses monsters to represent the fears, obsessions, ambitions, and unhealthy desires, such as the need of power, within the characters of the text. Each of the men in the text are monsters. They each embody and represent something humans have a fault to and Beatrice is the victim to the monsters faults. Giovanni is one of the characters Hawthorne makes into a monster to represent a deeper meaning. Giovanni has a need to dominate and possess Beatrice. This is precisely the quality Giovanni finds most threatening in his idea of her. He seems to desire a physical relationship, while fearing its dangers. A physical relationship with Beatrice would be "death" in the sense of being dominated by a woman. It also would be a physical death, because she is poisonous to the touch, as he finds out when he gets a bruise on his arm from her touching him. An instant, was standing before the bright and loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago, his wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither at her by a glance. But, with her actual presence, there came influences which had too real an existence to be at once shaken off; recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often enveloped him in a religious calm (15). Beatrice is dominating and possessing Giovanni, because she is in control of the relationship and Giovanni's feelings for her. She has the ability to control Giovanni's feelings and emotions by just her presence. Giovanni realizes this and decides something has to be done. By giving Beatrice the "antidote," Giovanni seeks to remake her into his ideal woman; one who will gratify ego his and conform to his fantasies. He wants a good relationship where his is in control with someone he likes. Baglioni is another character in "Rappaccini's Daughter" that is a monster, and a metaphor. First, Bagolioni convinces himself that Dr. Rappaccini is out to make a conquest for his academic chair, through Beatrice, "Rappaccini is said to have instructed
Warner 3 [Beatrice] deeply in science, and that, young beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a professor's chair. Perchance her father destines her for mine" (Hawthorne 5)! He desires to score a triumph over Doctor Rappaccini by eliminating his daughter, and he acts out of revenge, fear, professional rivalry, and envy. If Baglioni feels threatened by Doctor Rappaccini, then the thought of a woman being his intellectual superior and displacing him from his position must also be frightening. Baglioni's final lines, "So is this the upshot of your experiment"(18), are a gloating satisfaction of an academician exposing the foolishness of a colleague. The last and most obvious monster in "Rappaccini's Daughter" would be Dr. Rappaccini himself. Rappaccini projects his own selfish desires onto Beatrice and then blames her, not himself, when she refuses to go along with his scheme. His quest for knowledge is secondary when compared with his need for power. By isolating Beatrice, he has kept her ignorant and dependent upon him. The power Dr. Rappaccini has given his own daughter is ultimately for his own use, not her protection. Dr. Rappaccini is also a monster through the eyes of the characters in the text. But as for Rappaccini, it is said of him--and I, who know the man well, can answer for its truth--that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. 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 (4). The plants he creates are one example of his need for power. He figures out a way to make plants into his own creation, which he has power over. Dr. Rappaccini also has used his power to take over people to be subjects in experimentation of his plants. The people in the town make Dr. Rappaccini out to be some horrible mad scientist. They are the ones that tell Giovanni about Dr. Rappaccini's eerie Garden and poisonous daughter.
Warner 4 They warn Giovanni to stay away, which makes the reader automatically identify Dr. Rappaccini as the villain or monster of the story. The monster metaphors in "Rappaccini's Daughter" all have the same common theme. Each monster has a desire for power and all three men are afraid to be dominated and controlled by a woman. This shows that society is afraid of women and woman dominance. Men want to be in control, and when man's power is threatened man will do whatever possible to make sure they are still above women.
Warner 5 Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Rappaccini's Daughter. New York: Penguin, 1844. 3 Jan 2006 <http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/authors/Hawthorne/Rappaccini.htm>