Hawthorne

Rappacinni's Daughter is a companion piece to Hawthorne's story The Birthmark and the two of them mark a new turn in Hawthorne's work: the scientist who over-reaches and believes he can change the course of nature and in particular that he can control the life and destiny of a beautiful you woman. Each story is creepy in its own way but R's Daughter particularly so in that it's about and old and bitter man who isolates his daughter from humanity and makes her a malevolent and pestilential being. When a young man, Giovanni, falls in love w her R brings G too under his control and makes him pestilential as well - believing he is doing a favor to both by isolating them from the world. Especially powerful descriptions of the sweet but rotting odor of the flowers in R's garden and how this malevolent odor infects both young people. The story ends w a turn toward the melodramatic but leaves a powerful impression in any case - is R so different today from supposedly well-meaning parents who isolate their children from their peers thru weird cult behavior or anti-social indulgences and ideologies?

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