Rappaccinis Daughter Essay: Allegory of the Garden of Eden

In the literal sense, Nathaniel Hawthorns Rappaccinis Daughter is the tommyrot about the controversy between two scientists that ultimately causes the destruction of an innocent young woman. However, when the story is examined on a symbolic level, the reader sees that Rappaccinis Daughter is an allegorical reenactment of the pilot program fall from innocence and purity in the Garden of Eden. Rappaccinis garden sets the spot of this allegory, while the characters of the story each represent the important figures from the Genesis account. by dint of the literary devices of poetic and descriptive diction, Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys the symbolism of these characters, as well as the setting. The story takes place in mid-nineteenth century in Padua, Italy and revolves around two major settings the mansion of an old Paduan family, and Rappaccinis lush garden. The mansion is castd as, senior high and gloomythe palace of a Paduan noble desolate and ill-furnished This description es tablishes a dark mood throughout the story. Hawthorne writes, One of the ancestors of this familyhad been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his nut house The allusion of Dante refers to The Divine Comedy and the Inferno describes the souls in Hell. Furthermore, Baglioni converses with Giovanni in this mansion chamber and tries to manipulate him in his plan of attack to destroy Rappaccini. In a sense, the dark and gloomy mansion symbolizes the domain of a function of evil. The second major setting is the garden. The author uses poetic diction to describe Rappaccinis garden. Hawthorne writes, There was one shrub in particularthat bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the luster and richness of a jewelseemed enough to illuminate th... ...ce 35 (1989) 43-69. Male, Roy R. Hawthornes Tragic Vision. Austin Texas University force, 1957. Marder, Daniel. Exiles at plate A Story of Literature in Nineteenth Century America. Lanham University P ress of America, Inc., 1984. Norford, Don Parry. Rappaccinis Garden of Allegory. American Literature 50 (1979) 167-186. Phal, Dennis. Architects of the Abyss The uncertain Fictions of Poe, Hawthorne and Melville. Columbia University of Missouri Press, 1989. Person, Leland S., Jr. Aesthetic Headaches Women and Masculine Poetics in Poe, Melville and Hawthorne. capital of Greece University of Georgia Press, 1988. Shurr, William H. Rappaccinis Children American Writers in a Calvinist World. Lexington University of Kentucky Press, 1981. Waggoner, Hyatt H. Hawthorne A lively Study. Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1955.