Rappaccini's Daughter

One of the main motifs is the connection between women and flowers. For example, many female names are derived from flowers. Giovanni presents gifts of flowers to Beatrice. Finally, flowers often represent a feminine ideal of the period: delicate, pretty, and defenseless.

Throughout the story, the male characters use the connection between flowers and femininity to dehumanize Beatrice. On first seeing her, Giovani equates her to the flowers she tends. Her father sees her as another experiment. Baglioni uses her as a tool to frustrate Rappaccini’s plans. Beatrice’s poisonous nature becomes a type of patriarchal enslavement.

The narrator, by contrast, underlines Beatrice’s moral superiority and uses it to reveal the men’s shortcomings. Like in other works by Hawthorne, the female protagonist is the most complex and admirable character, offering a potential redemption for the hero. Rather than embrace her enslavement and help promote her father’s agenda, she chooses to die as an act of self-liberation. (An overview of feminist readings of the story can be found here.)

The story’s main theme is men’s hubris, which marks their masculinity as toxic. All three male characters believe they know best and can change the natural order without consequences.