Rappaccini's Daughter-Love and Tragedy

Rikki Dawn Runyon
English 101
Instructor: Sheila Shear
Date: 07-01-10

      Love and Tragedy

      Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Rappaccini's Daughter”, which was set in Padua, Italy a time long ago and is a tremendous love story. The main character of the story is Beatrice, and her father Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini is a mad scientist that manipulates nature in an attempt of perfecting life.   This story was adapted into a short-film titled “Twice Told Tales”.   In comparing and contrasting the short-story “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and the short-film “Twice Told Tales”, there are a lot of similarities and differences between the two.

      To begin, the scenery depicted in the text is very different than that of the short-film.   In the text, the garden is explicitly explained in great detail.   “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 luster and richness of a gem” (9). “Every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and herbs” (Hawthorne 9).

The scenery plays a key role in conveying the tone of the text.   In the short-film, the garden does in fact center on the purple plant, but only because the remaining garden is all but empty.   Neither the pool nor the shattered but gushing fountain appears at all in the short-film, and the pool provides the immediate surroundings for the all-important shrub (Sidney Salkow).

      In the short-film, Old Dame Lisabetta tells Giovanni that in her twenty years of working there, she has never seen a visitor enter Rappaccini’s home.   Professor Baglioni upholds the fact that no one has ever seen Beatrice.   Additionally, Beatrice talks to Giovanni concerning books she has read about the outside world, including references to his native Naples (Salkow). In the text, Professor Baglioni makes this statement to Giovanni, which is unlike the film.   “So now our friend Giovanni’s secret is out. You have heard of this...