Rappaccini’s Saboteur

Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini

I will take a step back from our course’s chronology to propose an alternate interpretation of Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter, a story I greatly enjoyed at face-value but believe hides a wildly divergent – and subversive – meaning.

My interpretation centers on Signor Pietro Baglioni, Giovanni Guasconti’s mentor, and the crucial role his rivalry with Rappaccini plays in the tale.

Rivalry is, without a doubt, a theme in Rappaccini’s Daughter: between a protective father and a potential lover, between scientist and nature, and between research via legitimate academic channels versus occult practices. The theme of rivalry is most poignant in the dynamics between Rappaccini and Baglioni, for instance when Baglioni responds testily to Giovanni’s question of whether Rappaccini’s obsessive love of science “is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of science?” (Hawthorne, Rappaccini’s Daughter)

Two seemingly throw-away details come to light as crucial elements through which to explore this rivalry. The first is a warning from the narrator for Giovanni – and us – not to place blind trust in Baglioni’s words:

Mark-Me-Not

Michelangelo's Creation of Adam and the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina

The hand-shaped blemish at the center of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’ (and his character Georgiana’s cheek) call forth the threat of physical violence, sexual promiscuity and the artistic signature of both man and nature. These themes are explored within the story and will be detailed in this essay.

Aylmer may well function as a doppelganger for Victor Frankenstein: both men dabble in occult arts outside the margins of science and suffer the fatal consequences of endeavoring to sublimate nature. It is reasonable to consider the hand-shaped birthmark with relation to Adam, fashioned out of dust and Prometheus, who molded man from clay. Both instances invoke the act of manual labor; the hand as artistic tool. Georgina brings forth these comparisons when declaring that “In [Aylmer’s] grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul.”

Other phenomena signal the hand as signature: Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, emphasizing the hand of God’s role in mankind’s creation, recently discovered cave paintings proffering hand-stencils as signatures and the already-established validity of fingerprints as identifiers. Nature left its signature on Georgiana’s cheek. Aylmer wished to impose his own by removing it.

The hand mark on Georgiana’s cheek suggests the physical violence of a slap. It symbolizes Aylmer’s abusive control over his wife’s appearance and self-esteem. It thus references the mark of Cain, struck by God as punishment for Abel’s murder. The mark, paradoxically, imbues Cain with God’s protection against death. Like Cain’s, Georgiana’s mark protects her from death, which she succumbs to through its removal.

The birthmark also connotes sexual promiscuity. The hand as sensory organ is integral to the sensual connectivity between people. Georgiana’s mark suggests she’s been touched; its redness evocative of broken-virginity. Indeed, she indicates that previous paramours were familiar with and fond of her mark, a detail that may not have sat well with Aylmer.

Georgiana’s birthmark references violence, promiscuity and possessive signatures. Through these motifs Hawthorne explores age-old Biblical and mythical ideas.

•This assignment was inspired by Kate's post on Hands and Hawthorne, and the ideas brought forth in our subsequent discussion.

Funny Peer Response

Student 4 provided me with a very thoughtful critique of my assignment, and I am very thankful for his/her consideration.

They advised me not to post my assignments on my blog before the grades get handed out, lest a reviewer accuses me of plagiarism. That's a suggestion I will adhere to from this point forward.

They also left this caveat:

Well played, student 4! You made me laugh. And if you read this, I hope you are relieved to know that the assignment and the blog post were both written by me.

Just One Eye

The Eye of Time by Salvador Dalí

A solitary eye rolls in and out of Poe's short stories. Not eyes, mind you, because this one travels solo. It does so discreetly and leaves an almost imperceptible but haunting trail in its wake.

The Black Cat loses one eye during a sadistic act. The murdered master in The Tell-Tale Heart dies because 'one of his eyes' ('a pale blue eye,' 'the vulture eye,' 'his Evil Eye') terrifies his servant. Roderick Usher lives in a dilapidated mansion with 'vacant eye-like windows' and has 'an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison.

The image of a singular eye does more than imbue each story with a surrealist tone. In its plural condition, eyes belong behind one's face – safely tucked in their appropriate pockets. An eye invoked on its own feels disembodied, a sphere of squishy tissue freed from its facial constraints. It has agency and an active gaze, like the Evil Eyes iconic to so many cultures.

I remember too, that Mary Shelley uses the imagery of the singular eye to describe the breathtaking moment when the creature comes alive, when Victor Frankenstein says, 'I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.' The idea that an eye on its own appears disembodied, thus, could not be more appropriate than a tale about a humanoid built from disparate body parts!

So there you have it: Edgar Allen Poe, master of eyeball-horror.

Now for a truly-horrific and truly-true tale one can't do any better than See No Evil, Skip Hollandsworth's account of the Texan serial-killer with a lifelong fascination with eyes.

Everybody Loves Rabkin

Of all the creatures great and small, my dog loves learning most of all.

I got up from the sofa for a mere two minutes and my dog took my seat. The lure of Frankenstein really is irresistible!

Secrecy and Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the eponymous character’s steadfast commitment to secrecy dooms him and his loved ones more than his creation could have done on its own.

Shelley’s masterpiece has often been interpreted as a rebuke to the Enlightenment’s blind trust in science, with Victor Frankenstein as the embodiment of the ambitious scientist who dares play God. He is, nevertheless, far from representative of the archetypal Enlightenment scientist: the secrecy with which he embarks on his project is anathema to the scientific ideals conceived in his time. If Frankenstein had applied the scientific method to his discovery of animation and subjected it to peer review, he would have exposed it to ethics debates and opened it up to more humane uses than the dubious achievement of building a human-being. Instead, his decision to do it in secret bars the possibility of a moral intervention, and ultimately buries this great discovery with him. He is arrogant enough to think that no one else would know of more beneficial applications to his great discovery, and this arrogance is perpetuated by his secrecy.

Frankenstein avoids telling anyone about the monster for over two years, leading – directly or indirectly – to the deaths of his brother, Justine, Elizabeth, Clerval and his father. Ultimately, however, the secrecy sucks the life out of Frankenstein himself. It transforms him into a paranoid wreck, consumed by guilt and driven to banish himself from ever experiencing happiness again. It is noteworthy to compare his feelings to the relief felt by Justine after she falsely confesses: Frankenstein sees that her confession leads to her absolution, whereas his secret-keeping results in him enduring hell.

Secrecy is a poignant theme in Frankenstein and closely tied to the equally relevant theme of loneliness. Frankenstein’s secrecy results in his overwhelming feeling that he has no one to turn to – much like the other two narrators, Captain Walton and the monster.

Full Text (Copyright-Free): THE BIRTHMARK by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.