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Subconscious Decision-Making In Rappaccini's Daughter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

1469 Words6 Pages

Despite many people's attempts at making decisions soberly and impartially, most fail to suppress their inner emotions from causing havoc, or even realizing what trouble subconscious decision-making can get them into. Throughout “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Giovanni does not make decisions with his brain; but rather with his heart and his cravings. In the beginning of the story he is portrayed as a lonely man who just moved from Southern Italy into Padua for his studies. He soon finds a garden of an old scientist, Rappaccini, underneath his window, and sees Rappaccini's daughter, Beatrice. He is very fascinated by the garden and observes it daily, falling in love with her as well. He eventually gets into it despite it’s …show more content…

After getting into the garden and meeting Beatrice for the first time, Beatrice takes Giovanni on a light stroll through the garden. Giovanni is in bliss the entire walk, and eventually they come upon the centerpiece of the garden; a purple, gem-like flower brought up by Beatrice and Rappaccini himself. Giovanni, having been promised one of the “living gems” growing on the flower earlier by Beatrice, reached out to pluck one. However, just as he was about to take one, Beatrice jumps in front of him, grabs him by the hand, and shrieks, “Touch it not! Not for thy life! For it is fatal!” After this she runs off hiding her face, and Giovanni heads back to his chamber. The next day, Giovanni notices a burning and stinging sensation in his right arm with a purple imprint of a hand. Ignoring the fact that it was quite clearly Beatrice’s grasp, he wonders what evil thing stung him, and just wraps a handkerchief around the hurt hand. Both the verbal warning about the plant and the results of Beatrice’s grasp are pieces of evidence showing the garden and Beatrice have poison circulating them, but Giovanni fails to realize this. Hawthorne then continues by narrating, 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 come, when it is doomed to vanish into thin

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