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The Narrator’s Authority in “Rappaccini’s Daughter”:
The Special Truth in the Discrepancy between Story and
Discourse
Te t s u y a F UJ I S AWA
*
Sy no ps is
Readers can have accepted the truth that the author including the narrator intends
to present: “There is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes
and touch with the finger” (120). However, readers recognize it in a special situation.
They are forced to believe discourse better than story by the authority of the narrator.
We may say that readers can reach the special truth which is deftly composed of
language. In other words, fiction composed of language makes it possible. If it had
not been for such a narrative technique, the narrative would have ended in a banal
tearjerker. In story, poison is life, and in discourse to doubt the narrator’s authority is
poison, that is, the authority is life for the narrative.
Ⅰ
“ R a p p a c c i n i ’s D a u g h t e r ” ( 1 8 4 4 ) w a s w r i t t e n b y N a t h a n i e l H a w t h o r n e ( 1 8 0 4 - 1 8 6 4 ) .
A c c o r d i n g t o R i c h a r d H . F o g l e , i t i s t h e m o s t d i f f i c u l t o f H a w t h o r n e ’s s t o r i e s ( 9 1 ) .
This short story has been discussed in diverse ways. Carol Bensick wrote a book on
o n l y t h e s h o r t s t o r y.
“The fundamental discrimination upon which all modern narratological theory is
founded, …, is precisely that between the two ‘levels’ of story and discourse, between
‘what really happened’ (the content of the narrative) and ‘how what really happened is
t o l d ’ ( t h e e x p r e s s i o n o f t h e n a r r a t i v e ) ” ( O ’ N e i l l 2 0 ) . I n t h i s p a p e r, I u s e t h e s e w o r d s ,
s t o r y a n d d i s c o u r s e , i n t h a t m e a n i n g . St o r y a n d d i s c o u r s e h a v e a c l o s e c o n n e c t i o n a n d
the world of the story can be reached only through the discourse that presents it. In
“ R a p p a c c i n i ’s D a u g h t e r, ” t h e r e i s a d i s c r e p a n c y b e t w e e n s t o r y a n d d i s c o u r s e . B e r n a r d
McCabe (1959) and Morton L. Ross (1971) pay a close attention to it, but they regard it
as a minus aspect. The narrator tells that Beatrice is an earthly angel and Giovanni is
a s n o b w h o d o e s n o t h a v e a d e e p h e a r t , b u t r e a d e r s d o n o t e x a c t l y k n o w i t i n s t o r y. R o y
R. Male (1957) supports the narrator and says that it is possible when readers read the
text “from an extraordinary point of view” though most of them tend to read it “from an
ordinary point of view”(68). Recently critics have hardly discussed the discrepancy
a n d n e g l e c t e d i t o n t h e g r o u n d s o f a l l e g o r y.
B y u s i n g t h e n a r r a t o r ’s a u t h o r i t y t h e a u t h o r s h o w s r e a d e r s t h e d i s c r e p a n c y o n
* Division of General Education
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purpose so that readers know the narrative is fiction which is composed of language,
a n d t h e n m a k e t h e m b e l i e v e d i s c o u r s e . T h e a u t h o r ’s i n t e n t i o n i n c l u d i n g t h e n a r r a t o r i s
to show that “[t]here is something truer and more real than what we can see with the
eyes and touch with the finger” (120). What I wish to discuss in this paper is that the
intention, that is, truth is achieved, showing the narrative is fiction.
Ⅱ
As for whether or not Beatrice is poisonous, it is the narrator that makes it
a m b i g u o u s . T h e n a r r a t o r c h o o s e s G i o v a n n i a s a r e f l e c t o r, a n d t h e r e a d e r i s i n v o l v e d i n
G i o v a n n i ’s i m p e r f e c t a n d l i m i t e d p o i n t o f v i e w. I n t h e f i r s t G i o v a n n i ’ s o b s e r v a t i o n o f
the garden from the high window, he clearly observes that Beatrice handles and inhales
the odor of several of the plants which Rappaccini sedulously avoided with a pair of
thick gloves and a mask. Rappaccini even tells her why he avoids the plants: “Yet,
shattered as I am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as
circumstances demand” (97). On the other hand, the narrator repeatedly questions the
r e l i a b i l i t y o f h i s s e n s e s , a n d t e l l s t h a t “ e r r o r s o f f a n c y, o r e v e n o f j u d g m e n t ” ( 9 8 ) b r i n g
about it. Giovanni seems that he cannot believe what he saw and felt of a sudden, but
the narrator criticizes him for taking “a most rational view of the whole matter” (98).
A f t e r G i o v a n n i c o m e s t o h i s r o o m f r o m B a g l i o n i ’s h o u s e , h e l o o k s d o w n a t t h e
garden again. The narrator intrudes into the text and makes it ambiguous so that
readers can be confused.
The narrator first questions the authenticity of what
G i o v a n n i w i l l o b s e r v e : “ B u t n o w, u n l e s s G i o v a n n i ' s d r a u g h t s o f w i n e h a d b e w i l d e r e d
his senses, a singular incident occurred (102). As for a small reptile, Giovanni thinks
t h a t i t d i e d a n d t h e n a r r a t o r d e n i e s i t . YA H A G I S a n z o d e s c r i b e s i t a s “ m u l t i p l e p o i n t s
of view” (2).
It appeared to Giovanni - but, at the distance from which he gazed, he could
scarcely have seen anything so minute - it appeared to him, however, that a
drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon
the lizard's head. (102-3)
Which points of view should readers believe? While readers are confused, the narrator
adds: “Beatrice observed this remarkable phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but
without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her
b o s o m ” ( 1 0 3 I t a l i c s m i n e ) . A t l e a s t G i o v a n n i s e e s B e a t r i c e ’s a c t i o n , b u t w h o j u d g e s
the flower to be “fatal”? When it is Giovanni, the narrator’s comments might be
rejected. When it is the narrator, the point of view belongs to Giovanni and the voice
to the narrator. Since readers cannot decide it, they are confused more and more.
N e x t G i o v a n n i o b s e r v e s t h a t a b u t t e r f l y f a l l s a n d d i e s a t B e a t r i c e ’s f e e t . T h e n a r r a t o r
first intrudes saying, “Now, here it could not be but that Giovanni Guasconti's eyes
deceived him” (103). Moreover, the narrator tells Giovanni fancies it. However, the
narrator suggests that what he saw is correct “from no cause that he could discern,
unless it were the atmosphere of her breath” (103).
Both Giovanni and Beatrice clearly assume that the reptile and the butterfly are dead.
Readers probably do not doubt that the flower and Beatrice give birth to it. Therefore,
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r e a d e r s t a k e c a r e f u l a t t e n t i o n n o t s o m u c h t o G i o v a n n i ’s r e l i a b i l i t y a s t o t h e n a r r a t o r ( ’s
authority). When Giovanni sees Beatrice with the fatal flower in her bosom, he
trembles, and at the same time, says, “Am I awake? Have I my sense?” (103). In fact,
Giovanni implicitly trusts what he saw as well as readers, but it was so odd that he just
cannot make the final determination. It can be also explained by the bouquet Giovanni
bought. Judging from his dream of the previous night, he supposes in the back of his
mind that Beatrice and some flowers in the garden are “fraught with some strange
p e r i l ” ( 9 8 ) . M o r e o v e r, h e s m e l l s t h e f l o w e r s ’ o d o r i n h i s r o o m . T h e r e f o r e , o n h i s w a y
t o h i s c h a m b e r f r o m B a g l i o n i ’s h o u s e , G i o v a n n i , w i t h s t r a n g e f a n t a s i e s i n r e f e r e n c e t o
Rappaccini and Beatrice, buys a fresh bouquet of flowers. Maybe he purchases them to
see whether or not the flowers are fresh in his room. “Scarcely knowing what he
did”(104), Giovanni throws down the flowers. He unconsciously does it so that he can
s e e w h e t h e r o r n o t t h e y a r e f r e s h i n B e a t r i c e ’s h a n d ; “ i t s e e m e d t o G i o v a n n i , w h e n s h e
was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet
was already beginning to wither in her grasp”(104). As Carol Bensick points out,
“[t]he ‘already’ clearly indicates that Giovanni was expecting something to happen to
the bouquet”(3).
As for the withered bouquet, “there could be no possibility of distinguishing a
faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance” (104). The narrator again denies
what Giovanni saw. In the end, when it is certain that Beatrice and some plants in the
garden, including Giovanni, have poison, what he saw turns out to be correct. The
narrator makes readers confused by his authority and even shows it to us. In other
words, the narrator shows that the narrative is the very fiction created by it. In this
point, readers are conscious of the discrepancy between story and discourse and seem to
believe the latter better.
Ⅲ
Before Giovanni actually meets Beatrice in the garden, he makes the lurid
i n t e r m i x t u r e o f l o v e a n d h o r r o r i n h i s m i n d , b u t i t a l t e r n a t e l y v a n q u i s h e s o n e a n o t h e r.
A s Ya h a g i p o i n t s o u t , i t m e a n s e i t h e r l o v e o v e r c o m e s h o r r o r o r h o r r o r d e f e a t s l o v e , a n d
neither of them appears as a mixture (8). Giovanni is almost conscious that Beatrice is
p o i s o n o u s , b u t h e t h i n k s s h e i s b e a u t i f u l a n d w a n t s t o a s s o c i a t e w i t h h e r. I f h e h a d n o t
b e e n i n t e r e s t e d i n h e r, h e w o u l d h a v e e s c a p e d f r o m h e r a n d g o n e o u t o f P a d u a j u s t l i k e
the narrator advises. Who reproaches Giovanni now?
H o w e v e r, t h e n a r r a t o r b e g i n s
to do it: “Giovanni had not a deep heart” (105), and, at the same time, begins to affirms
that Beatrice is poisonous: “he had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his
system” (105).
After Giovanni meets Beatrice in the garden, he keeps what he does not want to see
in the back of my mind. Giovanni regards Beatrice as the being “whom he had
idealized in such hues of terror - in whom he had positively witnessed such
manifestations of dreadful attributes.” “But such reflections were only momentary;
the effect of her character was too real, not to make itself familiar at once.” (113). As
for her character, he idealizes and, by a faintness caused by Beatrice's breath, “he
seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no
more doubt or fear”(112). Some critics interpret the poison as sexuality. It is true
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we may say his sexuality is one of the reasons why he idealizes her, but to argue
s y m b o l i s m o f p o i s o n w o u l d c a r r y u s t o f a r a w a y f r o m t h e p u r p o s e o f t h i s p a p e r.
A n y w a y, h e r e f u s e s t o a c k n o w l e d g e t h e h u e s o f t e r r o r a n d d r e a d f u l t e r r o r.
The painful purple prints of Beatrice’s finger absolutely terminate an argument
about Beatrice’s poison: Both Giovanni and readers make no doubt about her poison.
G i o v a n n i t r i e s t o d i r e c t h i s a t t e n t i o n t o B e a t r i c e ’s g o o d p o i n t s , n o t t o b a d o n e s .
T h o u g h h e w a v e r e d i n h i s d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f h o p e o r f e a r, h e h a s s e l e c t e d h o p e o v e r f e a r.
At this point, it is not far from the truth to say that Giovanni is trying to love Beatrice,
o v e r c o m i n g h i s f e a r. H o w e v e r, i t i s t h e n a r r a t o r t h a t d e c i d e s t h a t h e d o e s n o t a d e e p
heart and has foretold that the love will die.
Oh, how stubbornly does love - or even that cunning semblance of love which
flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart - how
stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes when it is doomed to
vanish into thin mist! (115)
The reasons why the narrator blames Giovanni are as follows:
Those tokens, which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful
peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by
the subtle sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment,
rendering Beatrice the more admirable, by so much as she was the more unique.
Whatever had looked ugly, was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change,
it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half ideas, which throng the
dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. (114)
The narrator does not tell the reasons clearly but points out two possibilities: Giovanni
has forgotten or distorted Beatrice’s frightful peculiarity. The narrator almost abuses
Giovanni. Even if it is the device of multiple-choice, there are no differences in that
the narrator just criticizes him. The narrator tells the reasons why Giovanni’s love is
“cunning semblance” or “a revery,” but does not concretely show them, though he tries
not to face her minus aspects in order to see her plus ones. If Beatrice just had had a
poison and Giovanni had not had it, he might have kept loving her. If Giovanni had
not been temped by Baglioni, he might not have put her to the test.
On the other hand, since the narrator tells about Beatrice from Giovanni’s point
of view, readers never see her minus aspects. Moreover, the narrator builds up a good
image of Beatrice through free indirect speech: “She was human: her nature was
endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she
was capable, surely, on her part, of the height and heroism of love” (114). For the
impression of Giovanni in the first meeting with Beatrice, it seems to be extreme.
Free indirect speech is the way to simultaneously show points of view of both the
narrator and a character and to blur the border between them. That is to say, the
narrator intrudes into the character’s inner and tells it from the point of view, and the
two points of view are combined (Maeda, 151). We hear the narrator’s voice under the
disguise of Giovanni’s point of view.
The play within a play told by Baglioni causes Giovanni to begin to think about
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B e a t r i c e ’s p o i s o n a g a i n w h i c h e x i s t e d w i t h i n h i s u n c o n s c i o u s : “ H e r p o i s o n h a s n o t y e t
i n s i n u a t e d i t s e l f i n t o m y s y s t e m ” ( 1 2 1 ) , a n d t o d i s t r u s t h e r. A t t h e s a m e t i m e , t h e
narrator becomes omniscient and, using about one page, explains what has happened in
order to declare that Giovanni is wrong and Beatrice is true: He actually does not love
h e r, b u t “ t h e p u r e l i g h t o f h e r c h a r a c t e r ” o r “ t h e n e c e s s a r y f o r c e o f h e r h i g h a t t r i b u t e s ”
( 1 2 0 ) m a k e G i o v a n n i c h e r i s h t h e d e l u s i o n t h a t h e l o v e s h e r, a n d “ h e f e l l d o w n ,
grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled therewith the pure whiteness of Beatrice's
image” (120).
As Bensick supposes, “this resort to moral judgment seems
unsatisfactory. ... Supposing Giovanni is unutterably shallow, we still need to know
what activates his shallowness (10). Beatrice only prevents Giovanni from touching a
poisonous shrub. As Ross points out, “the narrator by fiat has simply instead that a
preoccupation with Beatrice’s lethal exterior must give way to knowledge that the real
Beatrice is angel” (343).
We are now in a position to say the narrator’s scheme is obvious. The narrator
would like to assert that “[t]here is something truer and more real than what we can see
with the eyes and touch with the finger” (120). It is the narrator’s intention to show
for a moral: Giovanni, without having a deep heart, is never able to know that Beatrice
is an earthly angel. However, neither Giovanni nor Beatrice, as we have seen, gives
readers the reason, nor does narrator tell any evidence to judge it. Here, we could be
aware of a discrepancy between story and discourse, but most of us could not.
Fundamentally, readers have to believe what an omniscient narrator says. To borrow
Allan Gardner Lloyd Smith’s phrase, the narrator asserts unequivocally that Beatrice is
an angel and readers’ earthly doubts amount to a defilement of the pure whiteness of
Beatrice’s image like Rappaccini’s poisonous intrusion (38). Especially in the main
intention of the narrator, doubting an omniscient narrator can be compared to poison.
Therefore, readers should not doubt what Giovanni has no deep heart.
We may say
that the frequent and radial intrusions of the narrator can be compared to an antidote to
readers so that they cannot doubt the narrator.
Ⅳ
T h e n a r r a t o r, a s w e h a v e s e e n b e f o r e , l a b e l s t h e c h a r a c t e r s , m a k i n g t h e m o s t o f
his authority just like Giovanni is a snob and Beatrice is an angel. Baglioni is no
exception, but he differs from other characters in that he tries to overturn it. The
n a r r a t o r a l l o t s l o s e r ’s r o l e t o h i m , a n d d i r e c t l y s h o w s i t t o t h e r e a d e r.
The youth [Giovanni] might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many grains
of allowance, had he known that there was a professional warfare of long
continuance between him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the latter was
generally thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be inclined to
judge for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides,
preserved in the medical department of the University of Padua. (100)
B a g l i o n i r e c k o n s R a p p a c c i n i a s a r i v a l , b u t t h e f o r m e r i s m u c h i n f e r i o r t o t h e l a t t e r.
Therefore, even if Baglioni condemns Rappaccini for his immoral attitude toward
medical science, he is deemed to cry sour grapes. Since Baglioni is well aware of his
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sense of inferiority to Rappaccini, he reaches a decision to “foil”(108) and “thwart”
( 11 9 ) h i m . H e w o u l d l i k e t o g a i n s u p e r i o r i t y o v e r R a p p a c c i n i .
B a g l i o n i ’s s t o r y w i t h i n a s t o r y i s v e r y i m p o r t a n t w h e n w e t h i n k a b o u t f i c t i o n .
Before turning to discussion about it, we must draw close attention to Baglioni himself
b e c a u s e i t r e f l e c t s h i s s u b j e c t a s s u m p t i o n s o r r u m o r. We m a y s a y t h a t h e i s a n
u n r e l i a b l e n a r r a t o r. B a g l i o n i t h i n k s o f t h e r u m o r a b o u t R a p p a c c i n i a s b e i n g t r u e
because he knows him very well. Rappaccini “cares infinitely more for science than
for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new
experiment” (99).
According to the rumor, “[h]e would sacrifice human life, his own
among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him” (99), but Baglioni believes that he
must sacrifice human life for his experiment.
When Baglioni first met Giovanni, he
described Rappaccini as “a man who might hereafter chance to hold your [Giovanni’s]
life and death in his hands” (99).
A little later, Baglioni tells Giovanni that
Rappaccini’s instances of success are “the work of chance” and his failures “may justly
be considered his won work” (100). Baglioni assumes that Giovanni can die when he
becomes the subject of Rappaccini’s experiment.
Regarding Beatrice, Baglioni believes the rumor that Rappaccini instructed her
deeply in his science and she is already qualified to fill a professor’s chair. The rumor,
which turns out to be wrong, makes Baglioni assume that Rappaccini destines Beatrice
for Baglioni’s chair. Baglioni seems to worry about it, and he casts a spotlight on her
beyond necessity. As soon as Baglioni infers that Rappaccini has a scientific interest
in Giovanni, he assumes that Beatrice plays a part in her father’s experiment and
decides to pay close attention to her. However, he actually has no means to know her
very well, and he hits on an idea as to her and his father’s experiment when he happens
to read a classical literature. He does not mind embracing his opinion on the base on
rumor and fiction.
Let us now return to the story within a story. Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors
(1646) seems to be the probable source for it (Notes in Norton 204), but there is no
fatale breath which has poison and the poisonous girl is not an angel in it (Matsusaka
148,49). Therefore, readers do not have the exact source. On the other hand, since
Baglioni said to Giovanni, “Possibly you may remember it” (117), the story exists for
the characters.
[A]n Indian prince …sent a beautiful woman as a present to Alexander the Great.
She was as lovely as the dawn, and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially
distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath…. Alexander…fell in
love at first sight with this magnificent stranger; but …[she] had been nourished
with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with
them, that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. Poison was
her element of life. With that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very air.
(117)
Baglioni just chooses this story because there is a poisonous woman and a sage
physician who discovers the secret. It is clear that he identifies himself with the
physician. Baglioni only has the information that Rappaccini can sacrifice anybody
including himself and his daughter, and he also knows about poison very well. It
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seems reasonable to suppose that Baglioni concludes that Rappaccini made her daughter
poisonous. Other than that, he cannot presume anything. If he had probed the
relationship between Beatrice and some plants in the garden, he could have hit on
something when he smelled singular fragrance like the breath of a flower in Giovanni’s
apartment. As for Beatrice’s breath, Baglioni mere adapts the Indian woman’s breath
with hers without reasonable ground. Probably he speculated that poisonous Beatrice
as well as the Indian woman could expel fatal breath.
Baglioni said that “[t]hat old fable of the Indian woman has become a truth by the
deep and deadly science of Rappaccini and in the person of the lovely Beatrice”
(118-19), but in that point, it did not hold true. It is in Giovanni’s mind that the story
within a story becomes almost true. Fiction brought by Baglioni has a great influence
on another character.
The story within a story has little in common with the story of
Rappaccini and Beatrice. Baglioni just would like to tell Giovanni that Beatrice is
poisonous so that Giovanni will have her drink the antidote, because it enables him to
thwart Rappaccini’s experiment. In fact, Beatrice does not make positive efforts to
die Giovanni by her breath, and the breath can die insects, but cannot die man. The
aim in Rappaccini’s experiment is not to kill Giovanni but to make him poisonous as
well as Beatrice. Baglioni alludes to the possibility of Giovanni’s death, but he does
not directly associate it with the story within a story: “Perhaps the result is to be death
- perhaps a fate more awful still [because] Rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of
science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing” (119). The Indian woman who was
sent to kill the enemy seems to tick in his head.
Hardly had Giovanni heard the story within a story when he was sure Beatrice was
poisonous. However, by the time he knows he himself has been poisonous, he tries to
keep loving her. The reason for it is that he tries to perform some decisive test though
he cannot help expecting a bad result. “Not that he gave her up; he did but distrust”
(120), we may say that he makes an extravagant effort to love Beatrice.
Just after Giovanni knows he is poisonous as well as Beatrice, Baglioni’s story
within a story has a great influence on Giovanni. He starts to believe that the breath of
Beatrice and himself can kill man. He asserts that Beatrice is the only being whom his
breath may not slay or that if they dip their fingers in the holy water in church people
who come after them will perish. Someone would have been killed in the Florist shop
where Giovanni went to buy a bouquet for his last decisive test. However, Giovanni
believes that his breath can kill anybody except Beatrice and that he is isolated from all
the warmth of life.
As I have said before, had he known that he could live outside the garden, he
would not have vehemently criticized Beatrice. Although fuller discussion will be
presented later, she was vaguely aware that meeting with him in the garden made him
poisonous, and she would not like to meet Giovanni viciously just like the Indian
woman. Then, what made Giovanni poisonous? Is it Beatrice’s breath or the plants
in the garden? There is no apparent cause for it, but Giovanni assumes that he has
become poisonous on account of Beatrice: “Thou [Beatrice] hast made me as hateful, as
ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself” (124). Giovanni believes that
Beatrice made him a loathsome and deadly creature on purpose. If he had not done that,
he would not been abusive to her. If he had not heard Baglioni’s story within a story,
which is fiction, he would not have hurt her feelings so much.
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Ⅴ
The story within a story makes Giovanni curse Beatrice and by it she and he turn
out to be two of a kind. That is to say, she recognizes that her poison can infect him
but she seals it deep in the recess of her mind because she wants to be loved. As soon
as Beatrice sees that Giovanni’s breath kills some insects, she shrieks, “It is my
father’s fatal science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I!”(125). As Frederick Crews
points out, “This self-justification appears to rest on the scarcely believable fact that
Beatrice ... has never once considered that he might be taking contagion from her”
(119-20). Beatrice shifts the responsibility onto her father without a pause in order to
have self-justification. One can safely state that it is one of the evidences that she is
aware of the possibility of the infection. Just after it, as Beatrice continues that “my
father! – he has united us in this fearful sympathy” (125), she perceives Rappaccini’s
intension. It is clear that she understands that meeting with him in the garden makes
him poisonous some day but she has hoarded it in the back of her mind.
Let us look at the scenes where Beatrice tries to hide the fact that she is
poisonous and seems to grasp meeting with Giovanni made him poisonous. In the first
meeting with Giovanni, Beatrice at first tells him to believe nothing of her except what
he sees with his own eyes. Giovanni, who recollects the dead a reptile, a butterfly and
withered flowers, asks her to bid him believe nothing except what comes from her own
lips, and she understands what he has thought. She gets red in the face, but bids him
responding to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness. She behaves
as if she had a joke with him, and she is trying to quell his doubts. Moreover, Beatrice
urges him not to believe what he saw in the garden: “Forget whatever you may have
fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, still it may be false in its
essence” (112). In this scene, Beatrice not only disguises herself but also takes a
measure so that he will not pry into it. After that, when Giovanni is about to pluck a
toxic shrub, Beatrice stops him from doing it and flees from him hiding her face. If
just the shrub had been dangerous, she would not have hinder him uttering a shriek that
went through his heart like a dagger and would not flown away from him. It is true she
probably got panicky because she suddenly faced she was poisonous as well as the shrub,
but it had been enough for her to warn him not to touch it. It seems reasonable to
suppose that Beatrice grasps the possibility that getting alone with him can make him
poisonous.
Beatrice and Giovanni meet each other again hoarding what they do not want to
consider in the back their mind. The continual meeting with Beatrice in the garden
was “the whole space in which he might be said to love; .... Nor was it otherwise with
the daughter of Rappaccini”(115). Who blames them for it? Neither does even the
narrator in this scene: “After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course
of what we call fate” (115). As we have seen, however, the narrator reproaches only
Giovanni with his cunning semblance of love though he tries to love her by forgetting
her poison. After the first interview, Beatrice must have suffered deep conflict over
whether to meet Giovanni again. There are no differences between them except the
narrator keeps blaming Giovanni. Readers cannot know what Beatrice thinks or worry
about because the narrator adopts Giovanni’s point of view, and is tricked by the
narrator’s authority to make Beatrice an angel.
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In the last meeting, Beatrice readily admits herself poisonous, but never accepts
Giovanni has become poisonous because she has realized the possibility that meeting
with him might make him poisonous in the back of her mind. As soon as Beatrice sees
Giovanni, she, with a quick spiritual sense, immediately feels that there is a gulf of
blackness between them which neither he nor she can pass. Then when Giovanni
makes mention of the poisonous shrub, Beatrice shifts to a defiant attitude and
indirectly asks him whether he did not suspect her poison. It would be natural of
Giovanni to frown very darkly upon her. However, the narrator speaks up for her and
makes up her pureness: “[H]er faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her blush
that she had doubted for an instant” (123). Immediately she blames an awful doom,
caused by her father’s fatal love of science, which made her lonely.
Giovanni reveals that he has been poisonous with grievous cry but Beatrice never
admits it. Giovanni cries that Beatrice has separated him from all the warmth of life
and lured him into her region of unspeakable horror, but “[t]he force of his words had
not found its way into her mind; she was merely thunder-struck” (124). Readers, who
are forced to think of Beatrice as being pure and weak by the narrator, can assume that
she is just overwhelmed with his anger, but she actually refuses to accept disadvantage
information, and, therefore, she cannot understand what Giovanni cried. Giovanni
shouted again beside himself with passion because Beatrice never tries to understand
him. Who can blame him? However, the more he shouts, the more the narrator
blames him. Giovanni states plainly that he has been poisonous: “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” (124). Beatrice does not still face the fact
that Giovanni has been poisonous as well as her, and she asks him why he joins himself
with her in those terrible words. Giovanni not only blames her, but also expresses his
sadness because he is separated from the warmth of life. Beatrice cannot understand
his sadness. After all, it is not until she sees with her own eyes the insects killed by
Giovanni’s breath that she admits that he has really been poisonous. She only shifts
the responsibility onto her father and goes into hysterics.
Indeed she admits
Giovanni’s poison but she seems not to be concerned about his sadness. Let us
remember the narrator’s comment to blame Giovanni: “There is something truer and
more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger” (120). There
are no differences between Giovanni and Beatrice.
No only Beatrice but also Giovanni “craves love as its daily food” (125). As I
have said, the former meets the latter hoarding the possibility in the back of her mind
that seeking love may make him poisonous, and the latter does sees the former hoarding
the possibility that seeing her is very dangerous. Once it turns to reality, both of them
become cruel to each other. It is because Beatrice pretends ignorance that Giovanni
bursts into a fit of rage. He first tries to meet her in a calm manner, and his passion
exhausts itself in its outburst from his lips, and then he feels the sense mournful and not
without tenderness of the intimate and peculiar relationship. On the other hand,
Beatrice defends herself and falls into hysterics. “Yes; spurn me! - tread upon me! kill me! Oh, what is death, after such words as thine? But it was not I” (125).
Beatrice’s words are not always right: “[T]hough my body be nourished with poison, my
spirit is God’s creature, .... Not for a world of bliss would I have done it!” (125).
However, the narrator suggests that Beatrice is also cruel to Giovanni, and soon stands
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up for Beatrice.
If they should be cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them? ... Oh,
weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an earthly union and
earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love had been so bitterly wronged
as was Beatrice’s love by Giovanni’s blighting words! (125-26)
Only by the narrator’s authority, Beatrice’s love becomes deep one and he never so
much as refer to Giovanni’s love.
In story, there is little difference between Giovanni and Beatrice in that they
hoard what they do not want to face in the back of their mind. Another character,
Rappaccini, is no exception. Though he made her daughter poisonous just because of
his scientific interest and hoards it. He says with a confident manner that he has made
her stand apart from ordinary women and be dreadful to others, but as soon as she says
as opposed to it what a miserable doom it is, he gets upset and gives
disjointed
reasons. That is to say, he has not had any reasons why he made Beatrice poisonous.
“Miserable!'” exclaimed Rappaccini. “What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou
deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts against which no power nor
s t r e n g t h c o u l d a v a i l a n e n e m y ? M i s e r y, t o b e a b l e t o q u e l l t h e m i g h t i e s t w i t h a
b r e a t h ? M i s e r y, t o b e a s t e r r i b l e a s t h o u a r t b e a u t i f u l ? Wo u l d s t t h o u , t h e n , h a v e
preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?''
(127)
Probably he would like to say that the world outside the garden is completely evil and
since all the women are weak they cannot survive there, where the mightiest exists and
s i n c e h e l i v e s i n t h e e v i l w o r l d h e i s a n e n e m y. T h e w o r l d o f o r d i n a r y m e n i s n o t
always evil and judging from the rumor that Beatrice will be a professor all the women
are not weak and powerless. In the first place, what is the “enemy”? Even though the
mightiest is evil, can he automatically become enemy for women? It is likely that
those feeble excuses disclose that Rappaccini just would like to make Beatrice
poisonous due to his scientific interests. Rappaccini is never a feminist like some
critics point out.
Ⅵ
Baglioni, who lives within the narrative, demolishes the narrator’s intention.
The narrator tries to make Beatrice an angel and Giovanni a snob in order to show that
“There is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch
with the finger” (120). However, the story within a story Baglioni rewrites in order to
have Beatrice drink the antidote and exceed Rappaccini exposes the fact that there are
no differences among the two characters including Rappaccini. Readers cannot notice
it because of the narrator’s authority. The narrator’s authority is an antidote that
enables readers not to notice what really happens in story.
In the last scene, we can hear the author’s voice with Beatrice’s: “Oh, was there
not, from the first, more poison in thy [Giovanni’s] nature than in mine?” (127). The
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poison does not mean the literal one.
Therefore, the word “poison”, becomes
equivocal and it enables critics to interpret it variously. Beatrice admits that she has
poison in her nature, though she emphasized that her body was poisonous but her spirit
was pure. Then, does the poison mean what everyone has even if his spirit is pure, that
is, the original sin? In any case, the remark of Beatrice does raise a question of a
moral nature. It is unnatural only to think Beatrice blames Giovanni. The author has
Beatrice say the line to support the narrator’s intension. By the fact that Beatrice
morally reproaches Giovanni, no one doubts that she is an angel and he is a snob who
cannot believe except what he sees with the eyes and touches with the finger.
Beatrice drinks the antidote and dies, and it makes the narrator’s intention
immovable. That is to say, since all Giovanni can do is judge her by her earthly part,
he makes her lead to death, and she is killed as a victim. The reason why the antidote
kills Beatrice is told by the narrator: “To Beatrice – so radically had her earthly part
been wrought upon by Rappaccini’s skill – as poison had been life, so the powerful
antidote was death” (127-28). It is at the very end that the narrator tells us that
Beatrice’s poison is actually life. If the author had not made the “poison” equivocal
using Beatrice’s voice just before it, readers must have been confused or might have
neglected the narrator. Giovanni cannot have known the fact. He gives her the
antidote in good faith, and he intends to drink it together. He is different from Aylmer
in “The Birth-mark” who removes his wife Georgiana’s birthmark only to kill her.
However, Beatrice, whom the narrator calls the poor victim of Rappaccini and Giovanni,
dies at the feet of them, and she becomes a tragic heroin. The climax is mainly
constructed of the characters’ dialogue, and, as McCabe points out, the narrator almost
disappears. However, if it were not for the narrator’s sudden explanation in the last
paragraph which connects poison with life, the story would ends unnaturally. The
author conceals the unnaturalness by making poison ambiguous, as if it were an
antidote.
Ⅶ
We are now able to see a figure of the author “as the ‘director’ behind the narrative
and the narrator as its ‘performer’” (O’Nell 68). The author presents the special truth
in itself which has little to do with the commonplace one by showing readers that the
narrative is composed of language on purpose. The narrator first shows readers a
discrepancy between story and discourse, and openly reveals that the narrative is
composed of language, that is, fiction. And then the narrator makes readers believe
In other words, the narrator applies an antidote to
discourse better by his authority.
readers so that they will not suspect the discrepancy. Moreover, the author shows that
the narrative is fiction in another way. The story within a story Baglioni creates using
an old tale in order to have Giovanni use the antidote destroys the narrator’s intension:
Actually there is little difference between Beatrice and Giovanni.
It means the
following: First, a character in the narrative has an effect on the narrator out of the
narrative.
Second, there is a close relationship between fiction created by the narrator
and one created by a character. The antidote used as Baglioni expected makes the
intension revive. The author deftly composes the narrative.
Readers can have accepted the truth that the author including the narrator intends to
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present: “There is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes and
touch with the finger” (120). However, readers recognize it in a special situation.
They are forced to believe discourse better than story by the authority of the narrator.
We may say that readers can reach the special truth which is deftly composed of
language. In other words, fiction composed of language makes it possible. If it had
not been for such a narrative technique, the narrative would have ended in a banal
tearjerker. In story, poison is life, and in discourse to doubt the narrator’s authority is
poison, that is, the authority is life for the narrative.
At the instant of Beatrice’s death the narrative could close because the special truth
is completely showed. Why is there need for Baglioni to appear again and call loudly
to his rival?: “Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment?”
(128). It is true that Baglioni thwarts Rappaccini’s experiment but Baglioni never
becomes better than him. Baglioni never finds out that the poison is infectious among
human beings even if he smells the perfume like the smell of flower in Giovanni’s room,
and never knows that drinking the antidote leads to death. It is not too much to say
that Baglioni kills Beatrice. In fact, he fully perceives it, but he want to think he has
exceeded Rappaccini. We can know it “in a tone of triumph mixed with horror” (128).
Baglioni starts to hoard what he does not face in the back of her mind, just like other
characters before his fiction brings it to light, though he is the only character who does
not do it. Baglioni is a character who makes Giovanni and Beatrice perceive their
inmost thoughts, and it causes the narrative to accelerate the plot toward its climax.
At the end, in story, the narrative ends by beginning to get back to the first.
Wor k s Ci t e d
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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” The Centenary Edition Vol.Ⅹ. Moss
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