Love and Purity Within Rappaccini

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Love and Purity within Rappaccini’s Daughter Abstract Many people spend their life looking for true love. Rappaccini’s Daughter is an example of an old age search for love and in this story this love has a great deal to do with purity as well. Giovanni felt a need to search for love in his life, and Beatrice was the one who caused him to seek her out. Love Even though Beatrice’s body is corrupt by Dr. Rapacinni, her beauty and soul stay pure. Beatrice is a gentle lady who treats even the poisonous of plants with tenderness. When Giovanni comes along and into Beatrice’s life, she falls in love with him; with a genuine love that has no conditions or demands. With a poisonous touch that Beatrice carried with her, she wouldn’t allow for Giovanni to come close to her for his protection because she loved and cared about him. After Giovanni had spent so much time around Beatrice in the garden, he too, ended up becoming poisonous. After realizing that Giovanni had caught the poison, Baglioni reveals an antidote to become normal again. Beatrice says “Give it to me... I will drink but do thou await the result (Hawthorne).” By doing this, she is indicating that she is willing to test the antidote on herself for the safety of Giovanni. So that if the antidote was fatal, she would die and Giovanni would live. This shows her love because she would take her life before his, and she did since the antidote turned out to be a fatal poison. Beatrice also shows that her love for Giovanni is strongly than his love for her. Purity There are many symbols in this story, signifying purity. When you look at this story on a symbolic level, you can see that it is a reenactment from innocence and purity in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost their purity when they disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the tree with the knowledge of good and evil. Their
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