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Symbolism in Hawthorne

Giovanni, Purple Flowers, Tree of Knowledge

A young man and woman sit on the edge of an old marble fountain in the center of a beautiful garden. The garden is covered with so many unusual and exquisite plants that it is impossible to see the soil beneath. An old man dressed in black comes slowly into the garden. With a triumphant expression on his face, he spreads his hands out over them, as if blessing his divine creations. The characters in Rappaccini’s Daughter play many roles other than the obvious. Although there seems to be no general agreement on the tale’s interpretation, there is a general consensus that Christian symbolism is a prominent theme. Hawthorne has incorporated symbolism in order to connect the story to the Christian beliefs of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, God and the devil, and good and evil.

The most prominent Christian symbol present in the short story Rappaccini’s Daughter is the garden, where Beatrice spends most of her time. The garden represents the biblical Garden of Eden. In Genesis 2:9-10, the garden is described as having Aevery tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as a river which flows out of Eden to water the garden. This river seems much like the fountain in the center of Rappaccini’s garden. Giovanni described it as if it “were an immortal spirit, that sung its song unceasingly” (Hawthorne 1315). Both the Garden of Eden and Rappaccini’s garden seem to have a mystical quality about them. The Garden of Eden is represented as a safe paradise where those who reside in it may live forever on the fruits of the Lord. Rappaccini’s garden is described as having plants and herbs covering every part of the soil, which are then used for “medicines that are as potent as a charm” (Hawthorne 1315). As the Garden of Eden was a safe place for Adam and Eve, Rappaccini’s garden was also a safe place for Beatrice because while she was in the garden, she was around the poison that she was made of and was in no danger of infecting others.

Another symbol that Hawthorne incorporated into the story is the symbolic comparison between Giovanni and Beatrice to Adam and Eve from the Bible. In Genesis 1:27, it is stated that God first made man and then he created woman. In Rappaccini’s Daughter however, it is just the opposite. Rappaccini, who sometimes plays the part of God and at other times the devil, created his poisonous daughter, and when he realized that she had nobody to be with, he made sure that Giovanni was infected with the poison as well so that they could be together. Literary critic Richard Fogle stated, “Rappaccini is the God of an unnatural Paradise, his garden a perverted Eden” (99). Towards the end of the story he acts like God blessing the newly made couple and seems proud that he has separated them from “common men” and “ordinary women” (Hawthorne 1332).

Although Rappaccini appears to be God because he creates, he also appears to be the devil because he destroys what he has created at the same time. He had destroyed Beatrice’s life by making her poisonous and then did the same thing to Giovanni. In spite of the fact that he had created many new kinds of plants in his garden, they were poisonous plants! Poison is meant to destroy, which is even a synonym of the word. If Rappaccini had only created plants for medicine that were not poisonous, then he would have seemed like a true God and not the tainted one that he represents in this story.

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Beatrice’s purple flowers are yet another Christian symbol. One important fact to note is that the flowers are in the fountain, which is in the center of the garden. The fountain is a symbol for wisdom and truth, and since the flowers are in the fountain, they also have a similar meaning. God told Adam & Eve that they may eat of every tree in the garden but not of the tree of knowledge, which was also located in the center of the garden, or else they shall die. In a way, Beatrice’s purple sister plant is like the tree of knowledge because the tree of knowledge revealed to Adam and Eve the difference between good and evil. Although the purple flowers in Rappaccini’s garden are beautiful, they are deadly. Just as God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge, Beatrice told Giovanni not to touch the purple flowers, because if he did he would die. Beatrice had already broken this command, although not intentionally since her father had nourished her with the poison from birth. However, in the end she ended up dying from the antidote, which as the narrator stated, “as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was death” (Hawthorne 1333). This is just as Adam and Eve lost their immortality from eating the apple. With the knowledge that they had gained from it, they were banished from the tree of life forever.

The garden is actually refereed to as the Garden of Eden by Beatrice and questioned as to whether it is by the narrator. On one occasion when Beatrice called Giovanni down into the garden to be with her, as she customarily did, the narrator states, “And down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous flowers” (Hawthorne 1326). It is ironic how the garden can be referred to as an Eden even though it has poisonous flowers. An Eden seems like a place of beauty and goodness and poison seems evil. Another example of this is when Beatrice lay dying after drinking the antidote to her poisonous touch. “I am going, father, where the evil, which thou hast striven to mingle with my being, will pass away like a dream–like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden” (Hawthorne 1333). Here it seems Beatrice knows that the poison inside her earthly body does not mix with such a good and holy place as Eden and the only way for her to belong there is to die and rid herself of the evil inside her.

Although Beatrice is beautiful on the outside, she is poisonous to the touch which creates a struggle between her sole and her earthly body. According to Fogle, “Symbolically she should represent, then, a contrast between beauty and inner ugliness and evil” (91). Beatrice is a good person but she knows that her body has evil in it, so her body is nothing but a disguise for what her father had created inside of her. Beatrice is so close to her purple flowers, to which she refers to as her sister, because not only has she grown up with them, but they are the only other thing that is like her. She can not give affection, even a simple hug, to anyone, which is why she treats the flower as a person. Like Beatrice, the flowers also look beautiful on the outside; however they are just as poisonous as her.

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The fact that these flowers, along with other objects in the story, are purple signifies another Christian symbol. Throughout the story, the color purple is mentioned six times while in reference to Beatrice, the fountain, and to the plants. In Christian symbols, the color purple is a very old color and is the color of religion, symbolizing “God the father” (Vries 375). While looking down into the garden, for the first time Giovanni notices the purple flowers.

“There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre (sic) and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine” (Hawthorne 1315).

According to Foyle, purple can also symbolize Acomplexity and evil. He notes that white is “the color of goodness and simplicity . . . Beatrice is repeatedly associated with both; her voice makes Giovanni think of deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes of heavily delectable’,” (97). Beatrice’s evil poison had found a way to wind its self around Giovanni and had infected him. The fact that Beatrice’s beloved purple flowers and the color purple are mentioned so many times, signify that they are an important symbol in the story.

As Foyle mentioned, the color white is also associated with Beatrice. When, Giovanni first lays eyes upon Beatrice, he sees her as a “heavenly angel.” Her poison does not affect her nature, so before he knows that she is poisonous; he only sees the goodness in her. As he stated, he does seem “haunted” by some darkness that he thinks is around her character, such as “the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency, save the fragrance of her breath” (Hawthorne 1329). Even though he had seen these strange things occur, he quickly forgot about them whenever he was around the pureness of her character. However, when he does figure out that Beatrice is poisonous, he is confused because to him that translates to evil. “The pure whiteness of Beatrice’s image” (Hawthorne 1329) does not fit in Giovanni’s mind with his image of evil.

Another color used in the story is black. This color is used to describe Rappaccini himself. Black is an additional symbol for evil, such as Rappaccini having a heart as cold as stone. He cares more about science and his experiments than he does about his own daughter. When Giovanni first saw him through his window, he noticed that he was “dressed in a scholar’s garb of black” (Hawthorne 1315). Giovanni saw him again wearing black while Rappaccini was sneaking and watching him on the street. As Rappaccini drew near, Giovanni noted, “There was a peculiar quietness in the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human interest, in the young man” (Hawthorne 1322). Rappaccini did not seem to take a human interest in anybody. Everything he did was for science. Professor Baglioni warned Giovanni:

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“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” (Hawthorne 1318).

Rappaccini was willing to sacrifice his daughter’s happiness and even her life in order to further his scientific curiosity. This can be seen when Beatrice describes how she had been nourished on the poisonous plants since birth. She could have been killed as a newborn, yet Rappaccini still went ahead with his experiments on her. As Beatrice grew older, she had no other children to play with. She had not even been able to leave her home for fear that she may kill someone with her poisonous touch or breath. Although Rappaccini knew he had made his daughter different and unfit for human contact, he seemed to have no remorse because it had benefited him, a sign of a truly black heart.

Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter contains many Christian symbols that allow the tale to have numerous interpretations. The most noticeable of them being Giovanni and Beatrice symbolizing Adam and Eve, Rappaccini symbolizing God and the devil, and his garden symbolizing the Garden of Eden. All of the characters symbolize different Christian beliefs while the entire story plays around the theme of good verses evil. Beatrice is seen as a good and pure person on the outside, but inside she has an unnatural sort of evil that was created by her father. Rappaccini appeared to like playing the part of God, creating his godly creations; however, there was nothing godly about them. His creations were perverted and were only done to satisfy his own curiosity.

Sources:

Cooper, J.C. Dictionary of Christianity. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1996.

Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne=s Fiction: The Light and Dark. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Rappaccini’s Daughter.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, 6th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. 1313-1333.


The Holy Bible
. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990.

Vries, Ad de. Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974.