Rappaccini's Daughter Flashcards
by Nathaniel Hawthorne — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: Rappaccini's Daughter
Where does Giovanni Guasconti come from, and why does he travel to Padua?
Giovanni comes from southern Italy (Naples) and travels to Padua to pursue his studies at the University of Padua.
How does Giovanni first discover Rappaccini's garden?
His landlady Dame Lisabetta tells him to look out his window, and he sees the garden directly below his high chamber in the old edifice.
What happens to the lizard and the insect that come near Beatrice?
A drop of moisture from a broken flower stem kills the lizard, and a butterfly dies after lingering near Beatrice, apparently from her breath.
How does Lisabetta help Giovanni enter the garden?
Lisabetta reveals a private entrance to Rappaccini's garden and leads Giovanni through obscure passages to a hidden door, after he pays her a piece of gold.
What does Giovanni discover about himself when he tests his own breath on a spider?
He breathes on a spider and it dies, proving that he too has become poisonous through his prolonged contact with Beatrice and the garden.
What happens when Beatrice drinks Baglioni's antidote?
The antidote kills Beatrice because poison has become her element of life. The remedy that would cure ordinary poison is fatal to her transformed nature.
What is the last thing Beatrice says before she dies?
She asks Giovanni whether there was not "more poison in thy nature than in mine," suggesting that his cruelty and shallow faith were more toxic than her physical condition.
What is Rappaccini's reaction when he sees Giovanni and Beatrice together at the end?
He spreads his hands over them triumphantly like a father bestowing a blessing, revealing that he intentionally made Giovanni poisonous so Beatrice would no longer be alone.
What is Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini's defining character trait?
He values scientific knowledge above all else, including human life and even his own daughter's happiness, willing to sacrifice anything for his experiments.
How does Beatrice describe the purple shrub, and what is their relationship?
She calls it her "sister" and says she grew up and blossomed with the plant, nourished by its breath from the hour she first drew life.
What is Professor Baglioni's motivation for helping Giovanni?
Baglioni acts partly out of concern for his old friend's son, but also out of professional rivalry with Rappaccini, wanting to thwart his competitor's experiment.
What key character flaw does Giovanni reveal when he looks in the mirror before confronting Beatrice?
He admires his own beauty in the mirror, revealing a shallowness of feeling and insincerity of character even at a moment of crisis.
Who is M. de l'Aubepine mentioned in the story's preface?
He is a fictional French author Hawthorne invented as a satirical self-portrait. "Aubepine" is the French word for "hawthorn," making it a playful pseudonym.
What does Dame Lisabetta represent in the story's structure?
She functions as a go-between who facilitates Giovanni's entry into the garden, possibly acting under Rappaccini's instructions to draw Giovanni into the experiment.
What does the story suggest about the conflict between intellect and emotion?
It warns that cold intellect divorced from human feeling leads to destruction, as shown by Rappaccini's science and Giovanni's failure to trust his heart over his doubts.
How does the story explore the theme of isolation?
Beatrice is isolated from all human contact by her poisonous nature, and when Giovanni becomes poisonous too, both stand in "utter solitude" cut off from ordinary humanity.
What does the story say about the nature of true poison?
Through Beatrice's dying words, the story argues that moral and spiritual cruelty (Giovanni's hateful words) can be more poisonous than any physical toxin.
How does the story critique the ethics of scientific experimentation?
Rappaccini uses his own daughter as a lifelong experiment without her consent, showing how unchecked scientific ambition can treat human beings as mere subjects rather than people.
What literary device does Hawthorne use in the story's opening preface about M. de l'Aubepine?
He uses a frame narrative with dramatic irony, pretending the story is a French translation while satirizing his own career, since "Aubepine" is French for "hawthorn."
How does Hawthorne use the purple shrub as a symbol?
The gorgeous yet deadly purple shrub symbolizes Beatrice herself: radiantly beautiful but fatally poisonous, created by Rappaccini's science at the hour of her birth.
What is the significance of the shattered marble fountain at the center of the garden?
It represents the corruption of something once beautiful and pure. Though the water still flows cheerfully, the original design is lost, mirroring how nature has been perverted by Rappaccini.
How does Hawthorne employ foreshadowing through the bouquet Giovanni throws to Beatrice?
The fresh bouquet begins to wither in Beatrice's grasp almost immediately, foreshadowing both her toxic nature and the eventual destruction of their relationship.
What does the word "empiric" mean as Baglioni uses it to describe Rappaccini?
It means a practitioner who relies on experiment and observation rather than established medical theory, used here as an insult implying quackery and recklessness.
What does "alembic" mean in the phrase "distilled his own heart in an alembic"?
An alembic is a vessel used for distillation in alchemy. The phrase means Rappaccini has reduced even his own emotions to a scientific process.
What does "deleterious" mean as used to describe Rappaccini's plant varieties?
It means harmful, damaging, or destructive, referring to the new poisonous plant varieties Rappaccini has engineered that are worse than anything found in nature.
What is the significance of Beatrice's line: "If true to the outward senses, still it may be false in its essence"?
She asks Giovanni to trust her inner character over surface appearances, arguing that what the senses perceive about her may not reflect her true spiritual nature.
What does Rappaccini mean when he tells Beatrice: "Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?"
He reveals he sees her poisonous nature as a gift of power and protection, completely unable to understand that she would have preferred vulnerability with the capacity to be loved.
What is the meaning of Baglioni's final words: "Rappaccini! and is this the upshot of your experiment!"?
His words mix triumph and horror as Rappaccini's experiment ends in his daughter's death, though Baglioni's own antidote was the immediate cause, implicating both scientists in the tragedy.