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Pay close attention to the narrator and the narrative point of view in Hawthorne's fiction.
Why does Reverend Hooper become a famous and successful preacher?
What price does his fame and success cost him? Does Hawthorne seem to think the price was worth the fame and success, or not?
What does the veil symbolize to Hooper? To other characters? (Do all others see it as meaning the same thing? Make distinctions.) To you?
In what ways does the story, as an historical fiction, seem to "comment" on American Puritans? On remnants of American Puritanism extant in Hawthorne's time?
If Rappaccini 's garden is "an Eden in a fallen world," then who do the characters of Giovanni, Rappaccini, Baglioni, and Beatrice represent from the story of the garden in Genesis?
What is the purpose of the little introduction about "Monsieur de l'Aubepine" (French for hawthorn) at the beginning of "Rappaccini's Daughter"?
Compare Hawthorne's attitudes toward science as represented in "Rappaccini's Daughter" to those expressed by Poe in "Sonnet-To Science" and in Whitman's "Learn'd Astronomer. |
