If we assume that recurrent images, structure, tone, and literary allusions contribute to the meaning of “Rappaccini's Daughter”— and students of Hawthorne will agree, I think, that such an assumption is valid—the traditional interpretation of the story as a warning against intellectual pride appears inadequate. Such an interpretation, as I hope to make clear in this paper, overlooks the basic paradox of Giovanni's position as he wavers between the two aspects of evil represented by Rappaccini and Baglioni. Achievement of a fully satisfactory reading is difficult, however, because this is Hawthorne's most complex story, one which presents what he elsewhere describes as “a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue than we witness in the outward world” (II, 377).