In the short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter” many different causes led to Beatrice’s death. In my opinion many of the characters in the story played a crucial role in ending Beatrice’s life, though some characters were more responsible for her death than others. Signor Pietro Baglioni and her father, Dr. Rappaccini were both significantly responsible for her death. Baglioni was responsible for giving Beatrice an antidote which resulted in her physically dying and Rappaccini was completely responsible for making her poisonous and destroying her life which was not what he intended to do. Beatrice’s father, Dr. Rappaccini played an important role in ending her life. In the story Baglioni states “But as for Rappaccini, it is said of him—and I, who know the man well, can answer for its truth—that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.” (Pg. 6). Baglioni is saying that Rappaccini puts science before mankind. Rappaccini used Beatrice in his experiment but he wasn 't trying to hurt her. Rappaccini probably thought that by contaminating her with poison she would have become stronger than the average woman of that time. He didn 't poison her to make her suffer, he did it to …show more content…
In the story I felt as if all of the characters played a major role in Beatrice dying but the ones that stood out the most were Dr. Rappaccini and Signor Pietro Baglioni. The story’s very sad ending shows us that Beatrice’s death is the result of two men’s ambitions. The ambitions were to protect Beatrice and to get rid of Beatrice. The only one that was accomplished was getting rid of her. I could just imagine how Rappaccini must have felt when Beatrice died especially that his rival was the one that killed