Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark & Rappaccini's Daughter

father, where the evil, which thou hast striven

to mingle with my being, all(a)ow pass away like

a dream-like the fragrance of these baneful

flowers, which will no longer taint my breath

among the flowers of paradise" (Hawthorne 59).

In "The Birthmark," Aylmer cannot bear the birthmark on his wife's beautiful hardiness because he believes it detracts from her sweetie, which he deems otherwise perfect (Hawthorne 11). She is beautiful naturally, and call for no enhancement by man. In "Rappaccini's Daughter," Rappaccini cannot bear to resort his daughter, who is also beautiful naturally, and so has used his scientific cognition to imbue her with poisonous breath. Rappaccini not only values Beatrice's beauty, unless wishes to protect it by giving her lethal powers over any who approach her. It is his insolence which has driven him to do this as he says when she complains of the power he has given her:

"My science, and the sympathy between thee and him, imbibe so wrought within his system, that he now stands obscure from common m

When Giovanni, develops an antidote to bring down the power Rappaccini has created in his daughter he is pleased because this makes him, in his eyes, a worthy suitor (Hawthorne 58). While Rappaccini destroys her suitors to protect her beauty, Giovanni destroys Beatrice in the pursuit of her beauty.

The antidote proves fatal to Beatrice, just as removing the birthmark proved fatal to Georgiana.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. -"Young Goodman Brown and Other pithy Stories." Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift Editions. 1992.

en, as though dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women" (Hawthorne 58-59).

Both stories show the significance of accepting beauty how and where you find it instead of trying to switch it. They are stories with a moral: accept things as they are, and value them. We should be satisfied with what we are given by nature, and not try to change it, for in trying to change things to the way we would like to moderate them, we often destroy them. Hawthorne is clear in what he is trying to express in both stories. In "The Birthmark," he is understandably saying that man should accept people as they are, with all their faults and physical
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