Rappaccini's Daughter Ambiguity

As the poet Adam Smith once said, “On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.” This leads into the ideaology that Nathaniel Hawthorne carries throughout the story “Rappaccinni’s Daughter.” Within the story, Hawthorne leaves many elements of plot, character, and verbal discourse ambiguous to the reader. This narrative technique allows for the story to have various interpretations as each individual sees it. Throughout “The Discourse of Romance: Truth and Fantasy in Hawthorne’s Point of View” by Allene Cooper and “Gardens and Edens: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and Bernard Malmud’s “The Lady of the Lake” by Edward A. Abramson, the ambiguous nature or Hawthorne’s writing is highlighted

and emphasized throughout the story.
Through Cooper’s article, the element of ambiguity in “Rappaccinni’s Daughter” is fully explored. For example, the story is narrated through the point of view of a narrator summarizing and commenting on the story, occassionally switching to the characters thoughts. However, discrepancies are left as switches between narrator and character are left unclear. For instance, one paragraph begins with the charcter Giovanni’s thoughts and ends ambiguisly.
“Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment...She came lightly along the path, and met him near the broken fountain. There was a surprise in her face, but vrightened by a simple and kind expression of pleasure” (Cooper).
Hawthorne utilizes key words and phrases as to not allow the reader to be certain who is talking and whose thoughts are being said. No phrases such as “he thought” or “he said” are emphasized in the paragraph so that the reader would know for certain these were Giovanni’s thoughts rather than the narrator’s (Cooper). As a result, Hawthornes confuses the reader by including information the character does not know within the same paragraph as the characters private thoughts allows for various interpretations to be made, further creating a chaotic ambiguity within the text. Furthermore the article highlighted Hawthorne’s mysterious nature through the character of Beatrice. In the lines “She became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the you.. Evidently her experience of life had been confined…” (Cooper). Certain words that key a noncommittal attitude such as “appeared to” and “evidently” are employed by the narrator to create ambivalence for the reader in Beatrice’s character. In addition, the reader is unsure if this is Giovanni speaking or the narrator, further allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions to what Hawthorne’s intentions really are within his dubious writing.
In a similar manner, Abramson’s article touches on Hawthorne’s extensive use of ambiguity throughout “Rappaccinni’s Daughter” by means of character and plot.

One example is that of the cryptic nature of the character Baglioni. Baglioni is an enemy of Rappaccinni’s but a “friend” to Giovanni. At the conclusion of the story, Beatrice dies due to the antidote that Baglioni has produced in order to save her. He exclaims in a “tone of triumph mixed with horror” (Abramson). This points the reader into a multitude of directions in which the character Baglioni can be interpreted. His reaction alludes to the reader that Baglioni may have intended to kill Beatrice and that it was not an antidote at all, or that he didn’t intend for her to die but it worked out in his favor in the end, or that he was victorious over his rival Rappaccinni and proved Giovanni wrong too. The ambiguity within Baglioni’s character grants the reader the ability to decipher whether or not he is evil all along, or what his character truly entails. Another aspect of the story that contains vagueness is that of the Garden of Eden and Rappaccinni’s garden. The Garden of Eden created by God is supposed to be ideal in every way, however, Rappaccinni’s garden is poisonous, and Beatrice doesn’t want to stay in the garden. Furthermore, this goes against the ideals of the Garden of Eden and represents the opposite as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and condemned to the outside world, and Beatrice and Giovanni were condemned from the world and forced to live within the garden (Abramson). Consequently, the reader is left with the question, “Is Rappaccinni’s garden the modern day Garden of Eden? Or is it the exact opposite?” Overall, Abramson highlighted how Hawthorne frequents the utilization of uncertainty within his writings and especially “Rappacinni’s Daughter” in order to create a unique openness to interpretation of characters and

meaning.
In conclusion, throughout both articles, the reader gains new insight into Hawthorne’s writing style and context behind his inconclusive writing. They both draw a connection between the ambiguous with which Hawthorne writes. Allene Cooper’s article “The Discourse of Romance: Truth and Fantasy in Hawthorne’s Point of View” illustrates numerous examples of characters ambiguous nature and clarifys how this effects the reader. Similarly, “Gardens and Edens: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and Bernard Malmud’s “The Lady of the Lake” by Edward A. Abramson furthers this idea of equivocal writing essential to Hawthorne’s ideal of romance and narratice technique. As a result, the whole story is dubious in nature and left for the reader to interpret. Ultimately, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is one of Hawthorne’s notable stories filled with ambiguous characters and plot in order to misguide the readers and create confusion.