Conflict, Climax and Resolution in “Rappaccini’s Daughter”This essay will analyze “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne to determine the conflicts in the tale, their climax and resolution, using the essays of literary critics to aid in this interpretation. In this reader's opinion, the central conflict - the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist usually (Abrams 225) - in the tale is an internal conflict within Giovanni between his his love for Beatrice and his puritanical belief in the depravity of the man. His love for the beautiful girl blinds him to various indications of her venomous nature, to his father's evil nature, and to his father's intention to involve Giovanni as a subject in his sinister experiment. An assortment of minor conflicts ensues: Professor Baglioni's battle with Rappaccini; Beatrice's fight against her father; Beatrice's fight against her power to kill and in favor of the power to love, etc. The story takes place in Padua, Italy, where a student from Naples named Giovanni Guascanti has moved to study medicine. Her modest room is in an old mansion watched over by the landlady, Lady Lisabetta, a two-dimensional character given religious expletives like "Holy Virgin, signor!" » She seeks to make the client happy with their accommodation; she responds to Giovanni’s curiosity about a nearby garden: “No; this garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor. . . . » Giovanni, in his room, can hear the gurgling of water in Dr. Rappaccini's garden, from an ancient marble fountain located in the center of the plants and bushes; What particularly interests Giovanni is “a shrub in the middle of a piece of paper… Beatrice dies, “the poor victim of the ingenuity of man and of thwarted nature”, at the feet of her father and Giovanni. The catastrophe is that everyone loses except Beatrice; the doctor loses a daughter and a “specimen”; Giovanni loses a life partner and needs to isolate himself from people like Beatrice did; Baglioni loses an intelligent student; even the owner loses a tenant. WORKS CITED Abrams, MH A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s daughter.” Electronic text center. University of Virginia Library. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id="HawRapp"&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=publicKazin, Alfred. Introduction. Selected short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Prime Minister Fawcett, 1966.