Notes on "Rappaccini's Daughter

The “double” and the “foil” are main themes when it comes to “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” mainly because it represents a double in literature. A double is known as in literature, when the events in the story or novel are repeated twice by the characters. Baglioni and Rappaccini are both obsessed with science and thwarts Giovanni’s love for Rappaccini’s daughter, Beatrice by simply poisoning her to prove that Rappaccini loved science more than his own daughter. For instance, they are both rivals in the field of science and are obsessed with Beatrice. Only, Beatrice’s father is obsessed with her as his delicate child-like flower and Baglioni is obsessed with Beatrice’s death.

Here is where Baglioni thwarts their love and plans to poison Rappaccini’s daughter “But, resumed the professor, “be of good cheer, son of my friend. It is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from which her father’s madness has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! […] One little sip of this antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of Rappaccini.” So therefore, his plot for revenge against his rival, Rappaccini is made known.

Baglioni continues, “Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your Beatrice, and hopefully await the result.” Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young man’s mind. “We will thwart Rappaccini yet,” thought he, chuckling to himself, as he descended the stairs; “but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful man–a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the medical profession.” With this quote, we see that Baglioni is so obsessed with the good rules of medicine that he manages to get Giovanni to poison her just because she grew up with poisons in her body. Another double is that Baglioni and Rappaccini are both mad scientists who unleash and wreak havoc upon their loved ones which represents the double or the doppelgänger.

First off, Rappaccini wreaked havoc among his daughter and Giovanni because he poisoned her and made her invincible to poison except for the antidote that Baglioni had given her. Secondly, Baglioni poisoned Giovanni’s love for her by feeding him nonsense and finally poisoning the love of his life. Third, Baglioni plays father to Giovanni and Rappaccini plays father to Beatrice. Thus, we have the double that we can depend on which are love versus hate, nature versus natural life and good and evil. Baglioni displays hate while Beatrice’s father shows love while Baglioni is for natural life. Meanwhile, Rappaccini raised his daughter as a young girl who was birthed by poison in natural life versus nature. We therefore, have binary opposites or foil and doubles within the story. These themes are gothic because a foil is in both literary gothic terms, a character in juxtaposition with another character’s qualities in contrast (Baglioni and Rappaccini) and is the character who is driving the plot through his or her actions (Baglioni).

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” strikes shock and mystery for the reader when they find out that Baglioni is also a mad scientist who rivals Rappaccini with his obsession to make him miserable which then drives Baglioni to kill his daughter. The double is gothic in literature because “the terms “double” and “doppelgänger” […] used interchangeably in gothic scholarship, [has] no formal definition for the gothic double; though it can be generally understood as a physical representation of the division of the self, with two figures representing opposing sides of a good-evil dichotomy” which is the definition of the double or the German word doppelgänger.

                                                Works Cited

“The Double in Gothic Fiction | COVE.”

Https://Editions.Covecollective.Org/Edition/Were-Wolf/Double-Gothic-Fiction, 2018,

editions.covecollective.org/edition/were-wolf/double-gothic-fiction.

The Literature Network. “Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

Http://Www.Online-Literature.Com/Hawthorne/152/, 2021, www.online-

literature.com/hawthorne/152.