“Rapaccini's daughter” – The themeIn Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, “Rapaccini's daughter”, the dominant theme is evil within humanity. This essay aims to explore, exemplify and develop this topic. Hyatt Wagoner in “Nathaniel Hawthorne” states: Alienation is perhaps the theme he deals with most forcefully. “Insulation,” he sometimes called it, which suggests not just insulation but imperviousness. It is the opposite of that “osmosis of being” that Warren wrote about, that ability to respond and relate to others and the world. . . . it places us outside the 'magic circle' or 'magnetic chain' of humanity, where there is neither love nor reality (54). Wagoner's theme of alienation plays a role in “Rapaccini's Daughter” in reference to the doctor and Beatrice, and Giovanni after he is made poisonous by prolonged contact with Beatrice. But alienation is not, according to the reader, the dominant theme of the story. The main theme would be the evil that resides in human beings, regardless of how attractive they appear on the outside. “Everything he has to say is tied, ultimately, to 'that inner sphere'” (McPherson 68-69). Giovanni's love for his beautiful daughter blinds him to various clues to her poisonous nature, her father's evil nature, and her father's intent to involve Giovanni as a subject in his sinister experiment. At the climax his blindness is removed and he sees, with Beatrice's help, the truth of the situation; sees evil in man. The story takes place in Padua, Italy, where a Neapolitan student named Giovanni Guascanti has moved to attend medical school. Its ways...... middle of paper......es Press, 1968.Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rapaccini's daughter”. Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia Library. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id="HawRapp"&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=publicKazin, Alfred. Introduction. Selected short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Fawcett Premier, 1966. McPherson, Hugo. “Hawthorne's Use of Mythology.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.Wagoner, Hyatt. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." In Six Nineteenth-Century American Novelists, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.Williams, Stanley T. "The Puritan Mind of Hawthorne." In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.