Rappaccini'S Children: American Writers In A Calvinist World

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story Rappaccini's Daughter tells of a beautiful girl who has, from birth, absorbed the poison from the flowers of her father's garden. In this allegorical tale of the fallen Garden of Eden, William H. Shurr finds a metaphor for the fate of many American writers, for whom the heritage of calvinism has been the poisoned fruit of the Garden of the New World.