The Ending-Rappaccini’s Daught Essay, Research Paper

With Beatrice having drank the antidote, Giovanni pondered what lies ahead. This was the thought going through Giovanni s mind after Beatrice fell to the ground. As different scenarios played through his head he could not help but wonder what was really going to happen.

After seeing Beatrice die at my feet Giovanni was at a loss for words. My whole world seemed to be shaken, and I knew that I could not live without her. There was only one thing to do. I knew I must drink the antidote in hopes of also dying so that I could be with my beloved Beatrice. Although I was hoping that I could dream of an earthly reunion and earthly happiness as possible after such deep love had been so bitterly wronged ,I knew that it was not possible because she was now dead. If I wanted a reunion, I would have to drink the antidote. Also, by doing this maybe I could teach Rappiccini that life really was more important than any scientific experiment.

As I thought this over, I knew it would never help the situation. With me also dead, there would be more heartache and I doubted that dying would help Rappiccini change his mind about life being more important. Even as I was thinking this, another idea about what could happen started to play in my mind.

I rushed to Beatrice s side as soon as she fell, and realized that she was still alive but just in a coma. They brought a doctor to come see her and he said that he had no idea how long she would be in a coma and what she would be like if and when she got out. I knew that I must stay with her because I was the only one that could care for her for I too was poisonous. I stayed with her as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. During this time Beatrice slowly came out of her poisonous state because she wasn t spending time in the garden. One day as I was sitting there wishing that

might there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice, – the redeemed Beatrice- by the hand

I looked over at her and saw her arm move. I quickly called everyone into her room as she gradually awoke. Then as time went by I slowly nursed Beatrice back to health and we were able, with the help of Baglioni, to return to normal and go back to Italy.

As much as I wanted this to be true, I knew with all my heart that Beatrice really was dead and that I would never see her again. No matter how much I wanted her back, her father s work and studies killed her because

he would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.

Although I was grieving, I got yet another thought of what could happen next.

After hearing Baglioni yell Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment? from a window, I saw him run down towards the garden. He rushed toward me and pleaded with me to come back to his place with him. I finally agreed and went back with Baglioni. There he kept me until he was able to make more antidotes so that he could cure me. As soon as he made more he set out to gradually expose me to it just like I did with the poison. When I was finally back to normal I returned to Italy to put the garden and Beatrice out of my mind and just remember them as figments of my imagination.

I knew that this would never work because I would never be able to forget about what happened to me. I knew that I would remember my dearest Beatrice and the evil Rappaccini as long as I lived. I then thought of one other scenario that could happen.

As I sat staring at Beatrice with Rappaccini standing next to him, I began to cry. How could I have been so harsh to her? Why did I give her the antidote? Rappaccini tried to comfort me, as he too stood there stunned! Not knowing what else to do now that Beatrice was gone and not being able to live out or away from the garden I decided to stay and help Rappaccini with his research. After all, are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of science? Also, I knew that Rappaccini would want my help. Baglioni himself said so when he told me that for some purpose or other, this man of science is making a study of you. So there I stayed for many years to come helping Rappaccini with his work and taking walks in the garden remembering the days when I used to walk the same paths with Beatrice.

After playing all these different scenes in my head I was now utterly confused and wondered what really was going to happen.

In conclusion to this paper I think that if Hawthorne were to actually finish this story and tell what actually happened to Giovanni he would be most likely to have Baglioni help him become better and to return within the limits of ordinary nature. After he is normal again he would go back to Italy to go on with life and try to forget about what happened to him in that period of time. There are so many different ways this story could end and I think that was Nathaniel Hawthorne s point all along. With ending the story the way he did he is able to get people wondering about how they think it will end and what will happen to Giovanni. He is a great author because he knows how to get people to think about what is really going on and what is going to happen next in his stories.