Love in the Male Dominated Society of the 1800s in Hawthornes Rappaccinis Daughter :: Rappaccinis Daughter Essays

Love in the Male Dominated Society of the 1800s in Hawthornes Rappaccinis young lady Rappaccinis Daughter is a strange tale, good-natured of an early pseudo-scientific short base, that focuses on the emotional state of Beatrice and her bizarre nature. The result of a twisted experiment, she must find happiness within the walls of a garden her produce has created for her. Although her life depends on a fatal poison, she defines her soul as Gods creation, and craves love as its daily food (2131). This paradox creates a powerful story as the mortal Giovanni falls in love with the deadly Beatrice. Insane love and harsh words end the story with the climactic suicide of a heartsick girl. I saw this situation as being analogous to womens rights at the time. Rappaccinis Daughter was published in 1844, women couldnt vote in the USA until around 1920. This story was written in a time when women were generally victimized by the society they lived in. Rappaccini purposely introduces his only daughter to a poison filled, solitary life in the name of love. As he spends his life in achieving a picture (2131) Rappaccini forgets about the miserable doom (2132) he has inflicted upon his beloved daughter. This parallels the inflicted miseries women of the nineteenth hundred endured such as arranged marriages as well as many other paternalistic conditions placed in the name of love or safety. Rappaccinis Daughter was written two years after Hawthornes marriage and during the same year of his first daughters birth. The strange ideas brought forth in Rappaccinis Daughter are more substantially seen when his position is put into perspective. As a father he knew that his daughter would be subject to the very restrictions he so skillfully illustrates in Rappaccinis as well as in The Scarlet Letter. Could these stories be the imaginative musings of a frustrated father? Perhaps they were due to his own feelings after go a new groom. In either case both stories have a dominating theme of the oppression of womens sexuality, Beatrices poison being that of society. Harsh consequences bechance Rappaccini when he tries to control things he truly cannot, such as love and life. Would the same happen to Hawthorne is sought to exert as much control? The consultation of Rappaccini exemplifies perfectly the views held towards women in the