One element common to both Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"
and Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" is that of patriarchal dominance. For, both
Emily Grierson and Beatrice Rappaccini are subugated by the desires of their fathers; in
both Emily's and Beatrice's situations their lives are limited by the restrictions
placed upon them. As a result of the limitations of their lives, for instance, Emily
has suitors turned away by her father because they do not meet his standards--"None of
the suitors were quite good enough for Emily"--and Beatrice, of course, is
unapproachable for suitors because she has been "nourished with [the poisonous purple
flower's] breath" and will poison anyone who kisses
her.
However, while Beatrice is a femme
fatale, she does not intend harm to anyone; in fact, she prefers death to
harming Giovanni, telling her father that she is going "where the evil, which thou has
striven to mingle with my being, will pass away like a dream." She asks Giovanni, "Oh
was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?" On the other
hand, Emily "would not be denied," and has acted selfishlessly, unlike Beatrice, to
preserve her lover. The narrators state,
We remembered all the young men her father had
driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which
had robbed her, as people
will.
So, while the two
daughters of each story are similar in their having been controlled by patriarchs, they
differ in their acts of free will.
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