Rappaccini's Daughter Questions

1.a) This story takes place in the 16th century in Padua, Italy. Giovanni is in Padua to pursue hisstudies at the University of Padua. When he was in his chamber he enjoyed spending his time by looking down into the garden and Beatrice beneath his window .

1.b) Giovanni suspects that Rappaccini has arranged for him to visit the garden because he thought he was being set up when Lisabetta shows him private entrance in the garden and feels that she is some how connected to Rappaccini. He also remembers Baglioni warning him that Rappaccini could be using him as an experiment. Rappaccini's reasons for allowing a man to visit Beatrice could be that he does not want his daughter to be lonely and to show her she can fall in love even with the curse he has given her. He could have chose Giovanni to be the man to visit his daughter because he realized his love for the garden. He also noticed him talking to Baglioni, whom he does not get along with, and wanted to get back at him. Another reason could be that he knew Giovanni was constently looking below his window at the garden and Beatrice and that he eventually caught onto the idea that Beatrice's breathe was poisonous and deadly.

2.a) Baglioni is Giovanni's dad's friend and a professor of medicine in the University, whom Giovanni brought a letter of introduction to. Baglioni and Rappaccini do not get a long and have a long continuous professional warefare between them. Baglioni warns Giovanni that he is Rappaccini's next experiment when they see Rappaccini in the street and Baglioni notices the look on his face, the same one looking over a dead animal he has killed during one of his experiments. Baglioni also swears his life upon the idea that Giovanni is a subject to one of Rappaccini's experiments.


2.b) Giovanni could trust Baglioni's opinion because he knows Rappaccini really well and has seen what he can and has done. He may not trust Baglioni's opinion because he knows how much he dislikes Rappaccini and he knows about the continuous professional warfare between them. Baglioni has a voice of triumph mixed with fear at the end of the story because he is happy that he was right about Beatrice being poisonous and that he cured one of the many illnesses caused by Rappaccini. He is scared because his medicine killed Beatrice and he is also scared for Giovanni that he could now be poisonous.


3.a) Before Giovanni meets Beatrice he sees three things that are unimaginable and make him fear her. The first incident is when a small lizard is walking at the feet of Beatrice and she dropped a couple of drops of moisture from the purple gorgeous shrub onto the lizards head killing it. Then an insect was flying over her head and when her breathed reached the insect it dropped dead. The third incident happened when Giovanni threw down a fresh boquet of flowers down to her and they shriveled up in her hand. He forgot about his fears after he met her because he fell in love with her.

3.b) Beatrice hides her face and runs away because she touches his hand and is afraid that she could have poisoned him by just touching him. She says "I will drink- but do thou await the result," because if it does not kill her she wants him to still be there for her. I think Beatrice's love is more real for Giovanni because she can not go a day with out seeing him, she knows that she could kill him so she is cautious, and she also is willing to sacrifice her life for him. Giovanni also deep down seems to be somewhat scared of her making him love her less.

4.a) Most of the plants in Rappaccini's garden are poisonous. The purple beautiful shrub is deadly. Beatrice's breath is considered poisonous and could kill. I beleive that Rappaccini is poisonous in an unnatural way. He spreds poison among people and plants selectively. He also creates poison.

4.b) I think Rappaccini is evil because he made his daughter and many other things poisonous with out caring about what they have to think about his opinions. I define evil as one doing a harmful act upon another, gets joy out of doing it, and does not care about the other persons feelings. I believe all of the following characters are evil because they all had something to do with Beatrice's death and Giovanni's unhappiness. Rappiccinni would be on the highest degree of evil because he made his daughter poisonous, which is what caused all the problems. Right below him would be Baglioni because he was the one that gave Giovanni the potion that killed Beatrice and he also tried to get in the way of Beatrice and Giovanni's love. Next would be Lisabetta because she brought Giovanni into the garden which led him into falling in love with Beatrice. Beatrice would come next because she new she was harmful and could harm Giovanni but she still let herself love him and she also let him love her. Giovanni would be considered evil because he gave Beatrice the potion knowing that it could kill her.

5.a) Hawthorne describes Beatrice as a young girl beautiful as the day looking redundant with life, health, and energy. He also says, "she was more beautiful than the richest of them." She had a voice ful of richness and and youth was as rich as a tropical sunset. Her beauty was so brillant, so vivid in character, and glowed amid the sunlight. Her expressions where among simplicity and sweetness.

5.b) In earlier years people that smoked in movies could be considered toxic. Being a smoker used to mean something totally different people thought it was cool and made them look good. People who watched these movies with smokers thought they looked so cool and wanted to be just like them causing an impact on our society. It is the same way it is now, when you watch a movie and you really like one of the characters you think, "I want to be just like them," that's how it used to be but people wanted to be just like the smoker because they got all the girls/guys, were considered popular, or just looked cool. Some people who have stopped this trend would be doctors because they found out how bad smoking was and incouraged people to cut it out of their movies.

"Most men live lives of quiet desperation", this quote said by Thoreau is one of his famous quotes with a lot of great meaning. He is saying how most men live lives of anxiety, worry, fear, distraction, and nervousness. It is saying how men live their lives according to others and society but secretly wanting to live life in a totally different way. It is also saying how most people will go through their entire lives never becoming who they were meant to be, never living the life they were born to live, and never realizing their true talents they have. We, the people of the present generation, still have the chance to live our own lives any way we want to and to not live lives of quiet desperation.

amanda vocab 3

His colloquial words made people dislike him.
The dotard spent his days sitting at home watching t.v.
The furrow had an abundant amout of corn.
There was a misnomer on the map, so we got lost.
The vilification of the girl's attitde to the boy caused them to break up.
Her hand atrophied due to too many english essays.
The man was a misogynist so he killed women.
She was vidicated for shoplifting hen she showed them her receipt.
The movie attenuated the watchers to read the book.
The book was full of drivel words.
The virulent words spoken by the boy made the girl hate him with a passion.