Poolak Arshadi

Dr. Lawrence

English 571

13 November 2001

Incest in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Works: The Fall of Rappaccini’s Monarchy   

            The topic of incest has existed throughout our cultural history dating as far back as the 1800s.  The American Heritage Dictionary defines incest as “sexual relations between persons who are closely related” (423).  Monarchal governments would encourage incestuous relationships fearing outside “contamination,” thereby keeping their bloodlines “pure.”  Being a part of the royal family meant discriminating against commoners and foreigners.  After America declared independence from England and became a democracy, incest was not accepted by the democracy, and it was attested to cause infertility and physical defects; thereafter, becoming taboo.  Nathaniel Hawthorne’s preference toward a representative democratic society, instead of a pure democracy, which is found in Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” or a monarchal government, caused him to write an allegorical tale about the ineffectiveness of monarchies.  The House of Seven Gables and “Alice Doane’s Appeal” portray incestuous relationships because of its shock value.  Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” also contains implications of incest; however, he uses the garden to represent the ineffectiveness of a monarchal system through Beatrice’s death, since a monarchal system relies on incest and isolation to maintain it’s “purity.”[1]            

            Hawthorne’s fascination with incest sparked from his ancestry on his mother’s side.  His great-great grandmother accused her husband Captain Nicholas Manning of having sexual relations with his two sisters.  He “escaped arrest by fleeing the colony, but his sisters were tried, found guilty, fined, and sentenced to sit on stools wearing placards marked ‘Incest’ pinned to their caps” (Evans 191).  This incident caused a great deal of controversy and was the first type of sexual crime of its kind to appear in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Hawthorne was extremely fascinated by strange and atypical crimes and never tired of reading old court records.  Evans’ footnote reveals that Hawthorne was particularly interested in recording all types of crimes from the Newgate Calendar.  It was an interest that began during his childhood and remained with him into his adult life.  One of Hawthorne’s sons recalls Hawthorne reading a volume of the series “English State Trials” (191).  We observe Hawthorne’s fascination with incest materialize in The House of the Seven Gables.[2]            

            In The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne indistinctly displays the brother/sister relationship between Clifford and Phoebe Pyncheon into the realm of incest.  Hawthorne narrates:

Poor Hepzibah knew this truth, or, at least, acted on the instinct of it.  So long estranged from what was lovely, as Clifford had been, she rejoiced—rejoiced, though with a present sigh, and a secret purpose to shed tears in her own chamber—that he had brighter objects now before his eyes, than her aged and uncomely features. (House 109)

Through Hebzibah’s abnormally intense love for her brother, Hawthorne skillfully weaves in the element of incest into the scene.  Hepzibah’s love for her brother moves beyond the normal brother/sister love relationship into practically a husband/wife love affair.  It saddens her to know that she cannot compete with Phoebe’s beauty for her brother’s affection.  Hepzibah recognizes that Clifford would not be interested in an old, wrinkled and unattractive woman.  Since Clifford was “estranged from what was lovely,” it would only be natural for him to be drawn toward the beautiful.  The “brighter [object]” in Hepzibah’s mind is now Phoebe.  She feels unable to fulfill her brother’s desires; therefore, she is heartbroken, and “[sheds] tears in her own chamber.”  Not only does Hawthorne address incest within the novel, he also manages to address incest on a larger scale.  Teresa Goddu notes, “The house, which is personified as a body, refuses admittance as Hepzibah’s virginal body does.  Barred from intrusion, no one may enter the house except members of the family” (120).  Goddu comments on Hawthorne’s creative style of universalizing incest throughout the text.  The literary method of personification enables the reader to acknowledge the relationship between Hepzibah and her house.  Since the house and Hepzibah are structurally identical, Hepzibah becomes physically and emotionally attached to it.  Another example of Hawthorne’s application of incest is found in his short story “Alice Doane’s Appeal.”[3] 

Hawthorne writes a chilling, thought-provoking tale about murder and twists the plot to reveal a scandalous outcome in “Alice Doane’s Appeal.”  Leonard Doane defends his sister’s honor by murdering Walter Brome.  Hawthorne narrates, “In the course of the tale, the reader had been permitted to discover that all the incidents were results of the machinations of the wizard, who had cunningly devised that Walter Brome should tempt his unknown sister to guilt and shame, and himself perish by the hand of his twin-brother” (“ADA” 562).  Clearly, Hawthorne incorporates incest in this story for its shock value.  We are startled when Leonard Doane murders Walter Brome.  We are exceedingly more distressed to learn that they are twin brothers, since this fact ties in to the relationship between Walter and Alice.  However, Hawthorne compares these two crimes to see which one would be deemed as “the ultimate sin.”  He tries to compel his readers to choose between the lesser of two evils.  In “[tempting] his unknown sister to guilt and shame,” we brand Walter as committing a sinful act.  Nonetheless, it is Leonard who murders his own flesh and blood.  Hawthorne takes the initiative to expose his audience to travel unknown territories.  He stimulates public reaction by integrating the issue of incest in addition to murder in his story.  He creates these scenarios that require the ability to detect the hidden meaning or “read between the lines.” 

We first notice Hawthorne’s incestuous language in “Rappaccini’s Daughter”[4] when Giovanni first perceives Beatrice in the garden.  Hawthorne narrates:

Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly expressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes, and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another. (“Rappaccini” 191) 

Hawthorne obscures the incestuous relationship between Beatrice and “her favorite flower;” however, not enough to cloud our perception of the incident.  He delicately hints at an incestuous relationship between them.  Giovanni is unsure whether their relationship is simply “a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another.”  The action of “performing the duties of affection” entails an underlying sexual connotation and is particularly more emphatic, since the flower and Beatrice appear to be sister-like.  By describing the relationship between Beatrice and the flower as sisterly, Hawthorne creates a familial bond to their father, Dr. Rappaccini.  Hawthorne must have been “thinking about some kind of sexual irregularity” when he connected the flower and Beatrice together with the word “sister” (Boewe 41).  Hawthorne depicts Beatrice’s incestuous relationship with her flower, when he writes, “Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers” (”Rappaccini” 193).  Hawthorne visibly displays the intimate and sensual love between Beatrice and her flower.  He personifies the flower through the words “leafy bosom,” and as a result, stresses the sexual ambiance manifesting into incest.  Beatrice’s “passionate ardor” for her sisterly flower compels her to hug her flower with “an intimate embrace.”  Hawthorne insinuates an incestuous relationship on the border of masturbatory when Beatrice demands, “Give me thy breath, my sister, for I am faint” (“Rappaccini” 193).  Effectively, Beatrice is demanding a kiss from her sister-like flower.  She uses the plant to satisfy her needs, since she depends on her flower’s breath for life.  The plant titillates her when she breathes in its perfume and embraces its “leafy bosom.”  The strong and intimate love between the plant and Beatrice provide Beatrice with sexual and emotional pleasure.  Hawthorne drives his audience to equate Beatrice and her flower with two lovers.  Another incestuous relationship occurs between Giovanni and Beatrice.    

Even though Giovanni and Beatrice are not blood related, their relationship is incestuous, since they both have been contaminated by Rappaccini’s poisonous plant.   Charles Evans argues, “The true Adam in Hawthorne’s parable is Rappaccini, and both Beatrice and Giovanni may be regarded as his creations, for the latter, though not the offspring of his loins, is, at the end of the story, the monstrous offspring of his science” (187).  Evans declares that since Giovanni becomes Dr. Rappaccini’s scientific product, he possesses a joint attachment to both Dr. Rappaccini and Beatrice.  From this joint attachment, the love relationship between Giovanni and Beatrice becomes incestuous.  Giovanni senses an incredible closeness to Beatrice.  He feels that he is “conversing with [her] like a brother” (“Rappaccini” 200).  Hawthorne may not have been entirely conscious of particular implications toward incestuous relationships, since they were not fully developed.  Nevertheless, Hawthorne’s interest in controversial and sexual crimes supports Evans’ theory of the incestuous relationship between Giovanni and Beatrice.  Even Giovanni’s entrance into the garden symbolizes a sexual experience.  Frederick Crews comments on Hawthorne’s use of sexual undertones when Giovanni is led “along several obscure passages” “forcing himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden entrance” (409).  Giovanni’s entry into the garden displays a vivid image of a virginal sexual encounter.  Since Beatrice was contained in the garden, she remains virginal until Giovanni enters into the garden through the “private entrance.”  In addition, the bond between Beatrice and her father borderlines between that of a father-daughter and love relationship. 

            Every emotional connection that humans can have, Beatrice shares exclusively with Rappaccini; Rappaccini is her father, her brother, mentor and lover.  Rappaccini states, “’Here Beatrice, see how many needful offices require to be done to our chief treasure.  Yet, shattered as I am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand.  Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be consigned to your sole charge” (“Rappaccini” 190).  From Dr. Rappaccini’s request, Rappaccini depends on his daughter to help him attend to the plants in the garden.  Since she is confined to the garden, her father is her master; and therefore, she obeys her father’s instructions.  Dr. Rappaccini designates the plant to Beatrice’s attention so she can nurse the plant back to health.  He gives her this task because she is all ready poisoned by the plant; and thus, she can get close to the plant without harm.  As the only two people in the garden, Rappaccini depends solely on his daughter to help him, and in effect, they assume parental roles to the plants in the garden.  As Dr. Rappaccini’s student, she is taught all the information she needs in order to regulate the garden and care for its plants.  When Baglioni converses with Giovanni about Dr. Rappaccini, he asserts, “His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment.  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” (“Rappaccini” 192).  Baglioni believes that Rappaccini’s selfish nature compels him to go to great lengths and any extreme to get what he wants.  He assumes Rappaccini is unable to love anything or anybody but his science.  However, he is mistaken.  Rappaccini loves his daughter the only way he knows how.    

Since Rappaccini is a man of science, he shows his love for Beatrice by giving her the power to protect herself against harm.  When Beatrice questions her father about her poisonous breath, Rappaccini replies:

Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvelous gifts against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy—misery, to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath—misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none? (“Rappaccini” 208)  

Rappaccini tries to love and protect his daughter with the aid of his profession as a scientist.  He shelters her within the garden and provides her with a power to overcome all evil.  He does not understand why she is miserable, since he feels he has given her a “[marvelous gift].”  By making her poisonous, he has made her more powerful than any ordinary woman or man.  However, the gift that Rappaccini gives Beatrice, in which he believes is valuable and beneficial in actuality disadvantages Beatrice.  When Beatrice cries, “I would fain have been loved, not feared,” she finally forces her father to realize the torture he made her suffer through (“Rappaccini” 209).  Rappaccini had prevented her from feeling loved, and had made her a threat to nature.  Rappaccini does not understand that the poison he afflicts upon her does not display his love for her.  Again, Rappaccini’s scientific mind prevents him from understanding human emotions.  His isolation has made him lose touch with the human world; and therefore, he has lost touch with the true meaning of love.  By isolating Beatrice, Rappaccini has separated her from enjoying nature.      

Dr. Rappaccini loves his daughter and desires all of her affection; therefore, he ensures her love for him by confining her to the garden and making her poisonous toward other living creatures, which protects her from harm.   Even though she is outside in the garden, she is not free because she remains isolated from life.  She is an extension of the poisonous flower, and she has no choice but to accept her life within the garden.  She cannot travel beyond the borders of the garden because her poisonous breath would jeopardize the living.  Her life is limited to the plants in the garden.  Her poisonous breath kills every creature around her; therefore, she is obligated to love her father, even though he has caused her loneliness and much grief.  Rappaccini’s grip over Beatrice prohibits any friendships, which could possibly blossom into a love relationship.  Rappaccini makes it difficult for her to love or be loved by anyone but him.  When Dr. Rappaccini approaches Beatrice in the garden with Giovanni, Hawthorne writes, “As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to gaze with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who should spend his life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary and finally be satisfied with his success.  He paused; his bent form grew erect with conscious power” (“Rappaccini” 208).  When Dr. Rappaccini notices Beatrice with Giovanni in the garden, he is happy to see his daughter with Giovanni; however, he does not realize the pain and sorrow he had caused her prior to meeting with Giovanni.  His deep love for his daughter prevented him from seeing that she needed more than his love and affection; she also needed outside company.  

Beatrice’s poisonous breath prevents her from forming relationships with all other living creatures.  Giovanni observes Beatrice in the garden:

Without alighting on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and fluttered about her head.  […] Be that as it might, he fancied that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was dead—from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. (“Rappaccini” 194)

Her breath allures the butterfly, and then kills the insect instantly on contact.  Beatrice is incapable of ever enjoying nature’s beauty.  Instead, she is forced to love an artificial nature that lacks the fundamental attributes found within nature such as lizards, birds and insects.  She observes “the insect with childish delight” because her knowledge of nature does not exceed past the garden’s borders.  Certainly, her narrowed view of nature is not her fault, since she had been isolated in Rappaccini’s garden from birth.  Her knowledge of nature is simply incorrect.  As a product of Rappaccini’s experiment, she endangers all living things.  All of Beatrice’s potential relationships are destroyed before they have a chance to mature.  When Giovanni tosses a bouquet of flowers to Beatrice, “it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp” (“Rappaccini” 195).  This observation bewilders Giovanni.  He does not understand how death overcomes everything within her reach.  She is unable to hold the bouquet of flowers for more than a few seconds before they begin to whither and die.  In addition, even the relationship between herself and her father is stunted, since Rappaccini must wear thick gloves and a mask or some form of protective gear whenever he is in the garden or near his daughter.  His protective suit prevents Beatrice from forming a physical attachment to her father, which in turn suggests his superiority over her disability.  Since Hawthorne was interested in democratization, he used Rappaccini and his garden to represent a monarchal system. 

As monarchs claimed divine right to rule kingdoms, Rappaccini plays God in creating his garden.  He is the only ruling power, and he uses his scientific knowledge to manipulate the plants in his garden in order to breed a poisonous and deadly army. In Rappaccini’s kingdom, his poisonous plants act as soldiers, since they protect him and Beatrice from foreign invaders.  Rappaccini created them for the sole purpose of guarding his monarchy.  Beatrice converses to Giovanni about her father and the plants, “He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature, and, at the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang from the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I was but his earthly child.  Approach it not! It has qualities that you little dream of (“Rappaccini” 206).  Beatrice warns Giovanni about the dangers of the plant, and how Rappaccini created them.  Rappaccini goes against nature to create his own nature.  His kingdom is built on these poisonous plants, which represent his army of soldiers equipped for battle.  She reveals how the plants “sprang from the soil” “at the hour when [she] first drew breath.”  Therefore, Rappaccini created these plants to guard over Beatrice as well as the garden.  They are the guardians over the garden and watchers over Beatrice.  We observe the plants protecting Beatrice when a lizard approaches her in the garden.  Hawthorne writes, “[A] drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard’s head.  For an instant the reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine” (“Rappaccini” 194).  When the plant drips its poison on the lizard’s head, the plant personifies Beatrice’s protector.  The plant acknowledges that its duty is to protect its mistress from harm.  Since Beatrice “blossomed with the plant and was nourished with its breath,” the plant represents Beatrice’s mother (“Rappaccini” 206).  Beatrice attains qualities from her father and the plant.  From her father, she receives the human form, while from the mother-like plant she acquires physical beauty and internal poison.  In addition, the intimate act Beatrice shares with the plant that involves being “nourished with [the plant’s] breath” parallels the intimate act of a mother breastfeeding her child.  Beatrice embodies good and evil, innocence and perverseness.  Rappaccini’s overpowering fear of contamination leads to his creation of the poisonous plants.  He then makes it difficult for anyone to enter into the garden.  

The structure of Rappaccini’s garden is constructed in such a way that it blocks admission.  However, Giovanni is able to enter into the garden with the help of Lisbetta and her knowledge of the secret entrance.  Lisbetta discloses, “Listen, signor! There is a private entrance into the garden” (“Rappaccini” 197).  Through the image of the “private entrance” Hawthorne criticizes the monarchal system.  Rappaccini’s garden represents the elite society, while the “private entrance” signifies the loophole into the elite society.  It was only after Giovanni had placed a piece of gold into Lisbetta’s hand, that she opened the “private entrance” to Rappaccini’s garden.  Hawthorne displays Giovanni’s entrance into the garden as effortless.  Reverting to the sexual implication, Hawthorne also portrays the monarchal system like a brothel.  In addition, Hawthorne opposed a monarchal government because it denied the public the right to voice their opinions.  He also rejected the idea of a pure democracy, since a “majority rules” government ignores minority opinions.  Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” displayed the viciousness of patriotic mobs and the injustices done to loyalists.  Through this tale, Hawthorne rejects the idea of a pure democracy, since it displays poor and unjust treatment toward minority beliefs.  John McWilliams writes, “Like Cooper and Melville, Hawthorne praises the Revolutionary fathers as ‘men of an heroic age,’ then regrets that they are ‘now so utterly departed, as not even to touch upon the passing generation’” (373).  McWilliams comments on Hawthorne’s admiration of the revolutionaries who were “of an heroic age.”  Even though Hawthorne writes, “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,”[5] he depicts the political warfare in New England prior to the American Revolution.  Hawthorne evokes pity from his readers through the “tar-and-feathery” image of Major Molineux, and anger toward the “fiends that [thronged] in mockery]” (“MKMM” 16,7).  We sympathize with Major Molineux as Hawthorne arouses “a mixture of pity and terror” within his readers (“MKMM 16).  Hawthorne favored the notion of a representative democracy because it entailed a balanced system of government encompassing the best of both worlds.  Christof Wegelin writes: 

Hawthorne again and again sets down his belief in the superiority of America in matters ranging widely from nature to politics and from religion to hotel accommodation.  But sharply patriotic entries noticeably decrease as time passes.  More and more Hawthorne succumbed to the mellow charm of European culture until his allegiance to America almost seems to have been reduced to his belief in the superiority of her political institutions: if it were not for them, he felt, he could as readily make his home in another country, for “when you try to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away except one’s native state.” (239)  

Wegelin comments on Hawthorne’s dissatisfactory view of America.  His study does not conflict with my theory of “Rappaccini’s Daughter” as anti-Old World, since primarily his analysis covers Hawthorne’s works after his voyage to Europe in the 1850s, while “Rappaccini’s Daughter” was published in 1844.  Secondly, even though “Rappaccini’s Daughter” takes place in a lush and luxurious garden in Italy, Hawthorne was primarily concerned with the allegorical meaning of the story.  Hawthorne displays the horrors of a monarchal government through Giovanni’s encounter with the garden.                

After Giovanni enters into Rappaccini’s garden, his entrance symbolizes his acceptance into Rappaccini’s elite society.  When Giovanni questions Lisbetta about the garden, and whether or not she is the owner, she responds, “Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any that grow there now” (”Rappaccini” 188).  Lisbetta comments on the garden’s impurity and sterility when she reveals its inability to bear any fruit.  Rappaccini’s garden demonstrates the evils of incest through the unfruitfulness of the garden.  The garden’s impurity parallels the impurity of incestuous marriages.  Since monarchies allotted their thrones to their eldest son after they passed on, they ensured the purity of their bloodlines.  They did not allow non-royalty to marry into their families, so they encouraged members of royal families to marry within the family.  This unnatural behavior led to many physical defects and diseases such as hemophilia and infertility.  In “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” Dr. Rappaccini plays the role of the king when he creates his garden.  His daughter, therefore, plays the role of the princess, while the plants represent the kingdom’s army.  As we observe, the garden is isolated from the rest of the city, and Dr. Rappaccini does not allow any foreigners within the garden prior to Giovanni’s entrance.  Lisbetta continues, “It is said that he distils these plants into medicines that are as potent as a charm.  Oftentimes, you may see the signor doctor at work, and perchance the signora, his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that grow in the garden” (“Rappaccini” 188).  Again, Lisbetta points out the abnormalities of the plants in Rappaccini’s garden.  Although the sole purpose of the plants in Rappaccini’s garden is medicinal, the fact is that they still bear “strange flowers.”  Likewise, children of incestuous relationships are also known to suffer through deformities.  Since Rappaccini isolates himself, his daughter and the plants from the rest of the world, the plant life that exists within the garden cannot proliferate.  Instead, they begin to in-breed and produce “strange flowers.”  When Giovanni first appears in the garden, he observes: 

They were probably the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole growth of the garden.  In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in the collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to be poisonous. (“Rappaccini” 198)

Giovanni believes that the plants he does not recognize are the result of a single faulty experiment.  At first glance, the plants appear to be beautiful and exotic.  However, Giovanni realizes an inherent evilness within the rest of the company of plants that sets the entire garden apart from other natural gardens.  Since Giovanni only recognized a few plants, what he knew of these plants was disconcerting, since they were known to be poisonous.  Although Giovanni is unaware of the fact that Dr. Rappaccini is solely responsible for altering the chemistry of the plants to make them poisonous, he recognizes the diabolical arrangement taking shape within the garden.  Through Beatrice’s death, we witness the downfall of Rappaccini’s empire. 

            As Beatrice’s poisonous breath had caused death to the livelihood of many creatures, the antidote Giovanni gives Beatrice causes her death.  Hawthorne writes, “To Beatrice,--so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by Rappaccini’s skill,--as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was death” (“Rappaccini” 209).  Ironically, the antidote that was supposed to cure Beatrice of her poisonous breath was toxic enough to cause her death. She was so riddled with evil, that the antidote reversed its effect.  Her death symbolizes the end of the monarchal rule, since Rappaccini’s bloodline ends, as well as the surname.  Giovanni physically tried to free her from the incestuous realm she was isolated in; however, he actually released her spiritually.  Rappaccini’s elite society was unsuccessful because it relied heavily on incest and isolation.  Since Rappaccini did not allow proliferation and reproduction, the garden became hopeless and fruitless.  Beatrice proclaims, “But now it matters not, I am going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will pass away like a dream—like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden” (“Rappaccini” 209).  Beatrice desires to be freed from the life she has led in the garden.  She sacrifices herself, in order to prevent any future harm.  She opposes her father’s power over nature and the power he holds over her.  Her death results in the discontinuation of further destruction.  Although she was poisonous, we finally recognize Beatrice as the true victim.  Rappaccini’s plant poisons her, while Giovanni’s antidote kills her.  Since Beatrice is the only female, her death hinders the procreative process.  When Beatrice dies, the bloodline ceases to exist.  Moreover, Rappaccini and Giovanni are the only men that remain in the garden.  Beatrice’s death marks the failure of the elite society.  Without Beatrice, the Rappaccini’s future kingdom becomes extinct.       

In conclusion, Hawthorne displays traces of incest in The House of Seven Gables and “Alice Doane’s Appeal.”  The relationships between Beatrice and the plant, Beatrice and Giovanni, and Beatrice and her father in Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” are also incestuous.  However, the incestuous relationships that occur in “Rappaccini’s Daughter” exemplify the futility of the monarchal system, since it depends on incest and isolation to maintain a “pure” bloodline.  In addition, Hawthorne rejects the pure democracy that takes place in “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” since its “majority rules” policy disregards minority opinions.  His preference toward a representative democracy that contributes to the overall wellness of a society influenced him to write stories such as “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and “Rappaccini’s Garden.”  Through Beatrice’s death, we observe Rappaccini’s empire face extinction.  And as the only two male figures in the garden, Dr. Rappaccini and Giovanni must both reconcile the “upshot” of the experiment.