“Rappaccini’s Daughter” contains a number of Gothic elements, including the setting, the supernatural and extreme emotions.
Gothic fiction usually involves some kind of old, run-down castle or large home. The general atmosphere of the place is forbidding, gloomy, and slightly sinister.
The garden certainly fits this description.
“Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with...
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” contains a number of Gothic elements, including the setting, the supernatural and extreme emotions.
Gothic fiction usually involves some kind of old, run-down castle or large home. The general atmosphere of the place is forbidding, gloomy, and slightly sinister.
The garden certainly fits this description.
“Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so woefully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments.”
The garden exudes an unwelcoming air. As Giovanni watches Rappaccini walk through it, he is puzzled to see the doctor wearing heavy gloves and even a mask to protect himself from the plants. “When, in his walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice.” This mysteriousness and hint of danger in the setting is a common Gothic element.
Another Gothic element is the use of the supernatural and death. Often the supernatural may take the form of ghosts or demons. In this story, Rappaccini’s daughter is supernatural. She is not dead or inhuman, but she is poisonous. Whatever she touches dies. Because she was raised in the poison garden, she has built up immunity to the plants, but she herself has become as deadly as one of them. Her very breath kills any living creature near her.
A third Gothic element in this story can be found in the intense emotions felt by various characters. Giovanni loves Beatrice passionately, but he also hates her passionately when he realizes he is now as poisonous as she is.
“Yes, poisonous thing!” repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. “Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself — a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now — if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others — let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!”
Beatrice shows the depths of her love by insisting on drinking the antidote first, asking Giovanni to wait to make sure it is safe. She dies in order to try to save him.
The spooky setting, supernatural powers, and intense emotions are all common elements in Gothic literature, and all are present in “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”
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