Hawthorne’s Concept of Evil in “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and “The Scarlet Letter”

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Table of Contents

Hawthorne’s Concept of Evil
Rappaccini’s Daughter
The Scarlet Letter
Comparison
The concept of evil
Conclusion
Works Cited

Hawthorne’s Concept of Evil

Nathaniel Hawthorne is characterized as a writer deeply concerned with the Puritan values instilled in him as a result of his upbringing in nineteenth century New England. Although the area was no longer dominated by the Puritans of the past by the time Hawthorne was writing, many of the same ideas still surfaced and became the primary themes of Hawthorne’s novels and short stories. In the short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, Hawthorne examines the concept of sin and evil as he tells a relatively simple story of a young man and the young woman he falls in love with. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne tells the story of a young woman living in a Puritan community who becomes pregnant even though her husband has never been seen in New England. The way that the community dealt with this transgression of marital bonds comprises the bulk of the story, in which it is finally revealed that the highly respected Reverend Dimmesdale was the father of the child. Although the setting of “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is in Padua, Italy and The Scarlet Letter is set in New England, the two tales explore similar concepts of good and evil as they are revealed through the various characters introduced – Dr. Rappaccini, Beatrice and Giovanni in the short story and the townspeople, Pearl and Hester in The Scarlet Letter.

Rappaccini’s Daughter

In “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, Dr. Rappaccini is a mysterious sickly man who keeps a garden filled with unearthly beautiful flowers that each contains deadly poison. In this environment, he has brought up his lovely daughter by sustaining her on the products of this garden. As a result, Beatrice has become a deadly poison herself. From his first introduction, then, Dr. Rappaccini is presented in terms intended to link him with traditional concepts of evil. He is described as a “tall, emaciated, sallow and sickly looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb of black” (Hawthorne). Although his face appears intelligent and well-educated, his expression is further described as one that “could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart” (Hawthorne). As more is learned of him, it is discovered that his life study has been dedicated to producing the most deadly poison in the world. His studies have not prevented him from conducting cruel experiments on even those who might be expected to have been most precious to him, like his own daughter. Professor Baglioni tells Giovanni that Dr. Rappaccini’s 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 dear to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge” (Hawthorne). His willful imprisonment of his daughter by making her poisonous and his attempted kidnapping of Giovanni through the same methods prove Rappaccini’s evil nature in that he is willing to destroy life for no purpose other than because he can. Rappaccini is the strongest element of evil in the story because he willfully creates a situation in which his own daughter is poisonous to all other humans on earth, forcing her to live a life of isolation.

The Scarlet Letter

This same element of evil, as in forcing an individual to live a life of isolation, can be found in The Scarlet Letter. The women watching Hester come out of the prison at the beginning of the story talk about how she is receiving a very light punishment in ‘only’ being forced to wear the letter and to stand on public display. One woman insists that the letter should not be a removable mark on her gown, but instead a mark in her skin. “The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch … At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead” (Chapter 2). While another woman attempts to convince the others that Hester’s mark is quite deep enough, another woman quiets her with the remark that even a brand in the skin is not enough. “What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead? … This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book” (Chapter 2). Although the men around them seem to feel the women are being overly harsh, Hester’s punishment is not complete with a jail sentence or the probationary term of life under the scarlet letter. She is also required to stand on public display for a certain amount of time under the silent and accusing glares of the townspeople and will be forever isolated from the remainder of her society. “These Puritans insisted that they, as God’s elect, had the duty to direct national affairs according to God’s will as revealed in the Bible. This union of church and state to form a holy commonwealth gave Puritanism direct and exclusive control over most colonial activity until commercial and political changes forced them to relinquish it at the end of the 17th century” (Noll, 2004). This aspect of the scene illustrates how the darker side of human nature will always want to give greater physical punishment as a means of guaranteeing that the individual suffers. Although Hester’s punishment is long-term and severe, the women want it to be greater because they want to actually see her squirm in torment.

Comparison

In depicting The Scarlet Letter scene in this way and in comparison with “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, Hawthorne seems to be attempting to communicate the idea that evil is anything that operates in opposition to compassion for the feelings of another. However, there is a significant difference between the two stories in that the women of Hester’s world are not intentionally trying to create a world in which the product of their creation becomes poisonous to humankind while that is the express purpose of Rappaccini. Although the end effect is the same, the women seem to be operating under the belief that they are upholding a higher moral code.

The concept of evil

However, the concept of evil is not as simple as black and white. Hawthorne illustrates this through his portrayal of more innocent, yet still touched by evil, characters such as Beatrice and Pearl. In both of these characters, Hawthorne illustrates the concept of original sin. Although Beatrice is pure and good in every way, she is also a potent poison that kills upon the touch of her breath. “From the outset Beatrice is, as Hyatt H. Waggoner has suggested, the very embodiment of the central Christian paradox – angelic but corrupt, beautiful but damned. The poison in her system – the token of her corruption – brings death into the garden” (Male, 1954: 101). In her second appearance in the story, the girl is seen to pluck a flower from the most beautiful bush in the center of the garden and drops of liquid fall from it onto a lizard’s head at her feet, killing it almost instantly. “Beatrice observed this remarkable phenomenon, and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise” (Hawthorne). In this action, Beatrice is seen to be as pure and pious as the next girl, but still deadly in her most innocent actions. Not able to be tainted by anything other than the flowers in her father’s garden, Beatrice has become deadly in life as the Bible indicates woman is deadly to the soul. This is described more clearly when she encounters an insect that flies into the garden from outside: “while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; – its bright wings shivered; it was dead – from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her breath” (Hawthorne). Her touch on Giovanni’s hand on his first visit to the garden results in small purple handprint on his skin that causes a “burning and tingling agony in his hand” that Giovanni still fails to relate directly to the lady: “Giovanni wrapt a handkerchief about his hand, and wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice” (Hawthorne). While she is considered evil because of her deadly effect on other creatures, she is also seen to be pious and kind-hearted in her concern over others.

Pearl, Hester’s baby, is also symbolic of original sin. She is first seen as an infant in Hester’s arms, having spent the earliest days of her life on earth already in prison. Hawthorne introduces her as “a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartments of the prison” (Chapter 2). Thus, the very beginning of her life is associated with the sort of prison and isolation that will characterize much of the rest of her life. Because of her fatherless status, she is not permitted to play with the other children of the village as she might ‘taint’ them somehow. Her clothing, too, continues to remind the reader and the townspeople of her association with original sin in that Hester kept her “in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread” (Chapter 7) that was very similar in color and embellishment to Hester’s scarlet letter. However, it remains true that, like Beatrice, Pearl is completely innocent of her creation. Like Beatrice, Pearl is a beautiful child full of tremendous potential, but, unlike Beatrice, she is not as ready to love, perhaps because of her treatment by those around her.

Existing somewhere between the innocent evil of Beatrice and Pearl and the much more malevolent forces of Rappaccini and the townspeople, Giovanni and Hester Prynne are active yet unintentional participants in the evil that touches them. Giovanni is presented as a normal human being whose inner poison is brought out to greater effect as a result of his association with Beatrice. The beginning of Giovanni’s taint of evil in the form of poison is first indicated when he is visited by Professor Baglioni, who suspects the truth about the Rappaccini family. Baglioni asks Giovanni about the strange odor in his room. “It is faint, but delicious, and yet, after all, by no means agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill” (Hawthorne). From this hint, Giovanni begins to notice other signs that he is becoming as poisonous as the lady he loves. This suspicion grows as fresh flowers he bought from a nearby market begin to wither in his presence and his breath, after trying twice, manages to kill a spider working in his window. Upon making this discovery, Giovanni accuses Beatrice of having made him poisonous on purpose despite his own knowledge of her innocence. The narrator makes the comment that Giovanni’s memory of Beatrice’s true nature “had Giovanni known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly angel” (Hawthorne). However, Giovanni is not able to estimate his feelings and he begins shouting accusations at her that are not justified. “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” (Hawthorne). In Beatrice’s death, though, the contrast between the evil imposed on her and the evil adopted by Giovanni is brought forward. She says, “Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?” (Hawthorne). While Beatrice carried the original sin of birth in the form of her poisonous body, Giovanni carried this same sin within his very soul as he allows it to become active in his initial pursuit of Beatrice and then in his ready condemnation of her.

Hester, too, actively participates in the evil that leads to her ruin. At the opening of the novel, she has already given birth to her illegitimate child after having loved the highest pillar of morality her society has to offer out of wedlock. Because Pearl is the product of what is presumed to be a loving relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale, it is understood that Hester was a willing participant in Pearl’s creation. Hester’s offered a chance to get rid of her scarlet letter if she will name the father of her baby, but Hester has already been damaged beyond repair. She tells Reverend Dimmesdale that he will never be able to remove the letter: “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!” (Chapter 3). That Dimmesdale hasn’t reached out to save Hester already illustrates to Hester that his love for her is not sufficient to carry them through any future difficulties and forces her to come to grips with even greater isolation. In spite of the love they supposedly felt for each other, after Pearl’s birth, Reverend Dimmesdale could not even be seen to associate himself with Hester because she was a fallen woman. “All Hester’s strength, intelligence, devotion avail neither her lover nor herself” (Maclean, 1955: 13). While she remains trapped within her society, Hester has no option but to continue this type of existence, but she is finally given a chance to remove herself from this society with the inheritance of her daughter and their removal to Europe. However, Hester chooses to return to her lonely cottage and to continue wearing her scarlet letter by the end of the book. “Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it–resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom” (Chapter 24). Like Giovanni, Hester is scarred for life as a result of her own conscious choices made not in malice, but for love.

Conclusion

In both of these stories, then, Hawthorne compares the concepts of original sin, as it is either acknowledged and lived with as well as possible (in Beatrice and Pearl) or as it is unwittingly invited in the name of love (as in Giovanni and Hester), against the true concepts of evil, as it is present in Dr. Rappaccini and the townspeople in their apparent adoration of punishment and destruction. Beatrice is considered evil because her original sin in the form of poison is immediately evident on those she comes into contact with, but her soul remains pure, innocent and dedicated to good just as Pearl remains an innocent child throughout her story but is shunned because of her own association with original sin. Giovanni is considered neutral at the beginning of the story because he is so much like everyone else, but the fact that he becomes poisonous to the soul of the lovely girl illustrates that his attempts to hide the idea that he was also tainted with sin has only made his sin the greater of the two. Hester’s sin will not remain hidden, but is also brought about as an unintentional side effect of an attempt to find love and happiness in an imperfect world. Finally, Dr. Rappaccini, in his avid devotion to developing his highly toxic daughter, can be seen as an example of actual evil in that he is willing to doom those he loves to eternal isolation and sadness for the sake of his own pleasure and knowledge. This is strongly comparable to the townspeople in The Scarlet Letter as they also seem to be thirsting for the pain and destruction of one of their own.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Name of book. Name of Editors (Eds.). Place of publication: Name of publishers, date of publication: page numbers of story.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 1992.

Male, Roy R. Jr. “The Dual Aspects of Evil in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’” PMLA. Vol. 69, N. 1, (1954): 99-109.

Maclean, Hugh N. “Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter: ‘The Dark Problem of this Life.’” American Literature. Vol. 27, N. 1, (1955): 12-24.

Noll, Mark A. “Puritanism.” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (2^nd Ed.). Walter A. Elwell (Ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 2001, p. 857.

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