Annotated Bibliography

Works Cited

Bensick, Carol.  La Nouvelle Beatrice: Renaissance and Romance in “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1985.  This source was useful in that it provides eight different chapters dedicated to various interpretations about    Beatrice and Giovanni.  In her preface, she explains how she examines all the themes of “ambiguity, symbolism, allegory, the Gothic, fantasy, the shallow  hero, the vital female character, the Faustian and diabolic character, the theme of faith…:” (ix).  The criticism that I took from this text focus on the first three chapters.

Brown, Gaye.  “Hawthorne’s ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’: The Distaff Christ.” Nathaniel   Hawthorne Review.  22.2 (1996): 21-59. By far this article was most persuasive in its content.  Brown explains that the garden in this short story is not a Garden of Eden story, but rather one of Christ’s passion in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Her evidence is compelling and sets Beatrice up as a Christ figure who performs miracles.

Coale, Samuel Chase.  Mesmerism and Hawthorne: Mediums of American Romance. Tuscaloosa: U. of Alabama Press, 1998.  Coale provides specific examination of     mesmerism and gazing.  The text doesn’t focus on “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” but  rather the use of mesmerism and the gaze throughout his works.            

Crews, Frederick.  Sins of the Fathers:  Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes.  New York:   Oxford UP, 1966.  This is pretty old criticism and very Freudian.  Throughout the  text, Crews looks to find oedipal inclinations with all the male protagonists and their female counterparts.  Because so much of my essay incorporated Giovanni’s unfavorable interpretations of Beatrice’s sexuality, the use of sexual imagery in this text lent itself to a lot of support.  Crews, of course, used the sexual imagery to support the idea that what Giovanni was looking for with Beatrice was a surrogate mother, or possibly an incestuous relationship with her, if she is the sister figure.  The sense of ambiguity is what I extract and incorporate into my essay.

Gollin, Rita K.  Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Truth of Dreams.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979.  Gollins novel provides a comprehensive examination of all of Hawthorne’s work and the dream motif.  I rely on one quote to include the idea that through Giovanni’s dream, the reader can already see that Beatrice’s destruction will be linked to Giovanni.

Luedtke, Luther S. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Romance of the Orient. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989: 171-181.  This text is has a great examination of women of color and the chapter that focuses on Rappaccini’s Daughter examines Hawthorne’s specific statement, “her Oriental sunshine.”  Luedtke then gives pages of evidence regarding Eastern influence on Hawthorne.  There is very persuasive evidence that Luedtke brings forth for this case.

Norris, Pamela.  Eve: A Biography.  New York: New York UP, 1999.  This text explains the Cain and Able story as well as identifying that the mark placed on Cain is put on him not as a punishment, but only as protection after Cain asked for protection.  From this text, rely heavily on her explanation of the Cain and Able story being one of Free Will.

Pfister, Joel.  The Production of Personal Life:  Class, Gender, and the Psychological in     Hawthorne’s Fiction.  Stanford:  Stanford UP, 1991: 59-79.  A comprehensive study in the theme of gender and oppression.  Pfister relies heavily on the    interpretation of monster and its link to sexuality, in this case, Beatrice’s sexuality.

Stoehr, Taylor.  Hawthorne’s Mad Scientists:  Pseudoscience and Social Science in Nineteenth-Century Life and Letters.  Hamden: Archon Books, 1978.  I use only one theme from this text, and that is the theme of faith, or lack of faith in  Giovanni’s case.  The information on Rappaccini’s Daughter is quite brief, and   probably limited to no more than a handful of pages.

Stouck, David and Janet Giltrow.  “ ‘A confused and doubtful Sound of Voices’: Ironic Contingencies in the Language of Hawthorne’s Romances.”  Modern Language Review.  92:3 (1997). 559-572.  This is a brief article, but a great one, if you are interested in a rhetorical dissection of language.  Stouck and Giltrow provide very ‘user friendly’ definitions of modal verbs and their categories.  Their applications of these definitions apply so aptly to Hawthorne’s work because so much of the examinations reveals why “lurid intermixtures” are so puzzling.

Tharpe, Jac.  Nathaniel Hawthorne: Identity and Knowledge.  Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1967.  This work is only cited once in my paper, and that is the introduction.  Tharpe develops his idea of what theme Hawthorne is “really” presenting, but the criticism was a bit old, so I was reluctant to use it much in my essay. 

Works Consulted

Eichhorn, David Max.  Cain: Son of the Serpent, a Midrash or Homiletical Narration of the Fourth Chapter of the Book of Genesis.  New York:  Whittier, 1957. This gives excellent and lengthy detail of Cain. Each part of the Cain story is footnoted with psychological explanations and historical explanations that helped me understand this story better. 

Free, Joseph.  Archaeology and Bible History. Wheaton:  Van Kampen Press, 1950.  I looked to this source specifically to find information about Cain and Able. Like the two other sources, this source also identifies that God marked Cain only after  Cain asked for protection; he wasn’t cursed with the mark as punishment. 

Mitchell, Thomas R.  Hawthorne’s Fuller Mystery.  Amherst:  U. of Massachusetts Press,1998. A few pages touch on “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” but essentially everything in the text is developed to show that Hawthorne’s female protagonists are modeled after Margaret Fuller. I found it interesting, but not persuasive in terms  of Beatrice.