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Rappaccini's Daughter and the Garden of Eden

 

            "Rappaccini's Daughter," written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about Dr. Rappaccini, a medical researcher who produces a garden of poisonous plants. Rappaccini brings up his daughter (Beatrice) to tend the plants. Beatrice becomes resistant to the poisons, but in the process she becomes poisonous to others. In the story, Hawthorne has created many similarities between Adam and Eve's story in the Bible Genesis 1 and 2 and "Rappaccini's Daughter" version of creation. In both "Rappaccini's Daughter" and the Genesis chapters in the bible, I can definitely say the gardens are the setting. Both gardens have a type of a forbidden plant that should not be touched. Both gardens have sort of evil character that tries to destroy things. Both plants were located in center of the gardens which gently means deadly plant. .
             One way I find the two gardens are identical is that the both garden have a type of a forbidden plant that should not be touch on them. In Genesis' creation story, the forbidden planet was the apple tree. Whereas the forbidden plant in Hawthorne's story was a beautiful flower. At the beginning of the story, Giovanni was very curious about Rappaccini's garden and was tempted to go inside it. In Genesis, Eve was with the forbidden planet. She wanted to eat the fruit off the tree, but she knew that she had been warned by God that she was not allowed to do so. In Hawthorne's story, the old woman Lisabetta told Giovanni that there was a secret passage into the garden, and she showed him the way into it. Meanwhile, in the Garden of Eden, the serpent which was the devil convinced Eve to eat the apple off the tree. As the story goes on, Giovanni realized that he had been poisoned and once again took on the role of Eve. He convinced Beatrice that it was a terrible thing to be poisoned and brought her a vial with a cure in it. Giovanni convinced her to drink it. In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, Eve convinced Adam to eat an apple off the tree that God had warned them to not touch which got them expelled from the garden.


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