Rain rain go away asimov lesson plan

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Science Fiction . . . .

Edited by Arthur B. Evans,

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Joan Gordon,

Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and

Carol McGuirk

w e s l e y a n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Middletown, Connecticut

Wesleyan University Press

Middletown CT 06459

www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

2010 © SF-TH Inc.

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

The editors would like to thank DePauw University,

the University of Iowa, and Trent University for their

generous support in making this teaching

anthology possible.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Wesleyan anthology of science fiction /

edited by Arthur B. Evans . . . [et al.].

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8195-6954-7 (cloth: alk. paper)

—ISBN 978-0-8195-6955-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Science fiction, American. 2. Science fiction, English. I. Evans, Arthur B.

PS648.S3W39 2010

813′.0876208—dc22

2009053144

5 4 3 2 1

To

rIchard dale mulleN,

founder and benefactor of

Science Fiction Studies

contents . . . .

Introduction xi

chroNologIcal lIStINg of StorIeS Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844) 1

Jules Verne, from Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) 26

H. G. Wells, “The Star” (1897) 39

E. M. Forster, “The Machine Stops” (1909) 50

Edmond Hamilton, “The Man Who Evolved” (1931) 79

Leslie F. Stone, “The Conquest of Gola” (1931) 96

C. L. Moore, “Shambleau” (1933) 110

Stanley Weinbaum, “A Martian Odyssey” (1934) 136

Isaac Asimov, “Reason” (1941) 160

Cliff ord D. Simak, “Desertion” (1944) 177

Theodore Sturgeon, “Thunder and Roses” (1947) 189

Judith Merril, “That Only a Mother” (1948) 211

Fritz Leiber, “Coming Attraction” (1950) 221

Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950) 234

Arthur C. Clarke, “The Sentinel” (1951) 241

Robert Sheckley, “Specialist” (1953) 250

William Tenn, “The Liberation of Earth” (1953) 266

Alfred Bester, “Fondly Fahrenheit” (1954) 283

Avram Davidson, “The Golem” (1955) 303

Cordwainer Smith, “The Game of Rat and Dragon” (1955) 309

Robert A. Heinlein, “ ‘All You Zombies—’” (1959) 324

J. G. Ballard, “The Cage of Sand” (1962) 337

R. A. Laff erty, “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965) 359

Harlan Ellison, “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965) 367

Frederik Pohl, “Day Million” (1966) 379

Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) 385

viii coNteNtS

Samuel R. Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah . . .” (1967) 405

Pamela Zoline, “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967) 415

Robert Silverberg, “Passengers” (1968) 430

Brian Aldiss, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” (1969) 443

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Nine Lives” (1969) 452

Frank Herbert, “Seed Stock” (1970) 477

Stanislaw Lem, “The Seventh Voyage,” from The Star Diaries (1971) 490

Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” (1972) 507

James Tiptree Jr., “And I Awoke and Found Me Here

on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972) 516

John Varley, “Air Raid” (1977) 525

Carol Emshwiller, “Abominable” (1980) 539

William Gibson, “Burning Chrome” (1982) 547

Octavia E. Butler, “Speech Sounds” (1983) 566

Nancy Kress, “Out of All Them Bright Stars” (1985) 580

Pat Cadigan, “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986) 587

Kate Wilhelm, “Forever Yours, Anna” (1987) 598

Bruce Sterling, “We See Things Differently” (1989) 611

Misha Nogha, “Chippoke Na Gomi” (1989) 630

Eileen Gunn, “Computer Friendly” (1989) 637

John Kessel, “Invaders” (1990) 654

Gene Wolfe, “Useful Phrases” (1992) 675

Greg Egan, “Closer” (1992) 683

James Patrick Kelly, “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995) 698

Geoff Ryman, “Everywhere” (1999) 717

Charles Stross, “Rogue Farm” (2003) 727

Ted Chiang, “Exhalation” (2008) 742

thematIc lIStINg of StorIeS Alien Encounters

C. L. Moore, “Shambleau” (1933) 110

Stanley Weinbaum, “A Martian Odyssey” (1934) 136

Arthur C. Clarke, “The Sentinel” (1951) 241

Robert Sheckley, “Specialist” (1953) 250

Robert Silverberg, “Passengers” (1968) 430

Nancy Kress, “Out of All Them Bright Stars” (1985) 580

coNteNtS ix

Gene Wolfe, “Useful Phrases” (1992) 675

James Patrick Kelly, “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995) 698

Apocalypse and Post-apocalypse

H. G. Wells, “The Star” (1897) 39

Fritz Leiber, “Coming Attraction” (1950) 221

Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950) 234

J. G. Ballard, “The Cage of Sand” (1962) 337

Octavia E. Butler, “Speech Sounds” (1983) 566

Misha Nogha, “Chippoke Na Gomi” (1989) 630

Artificial/Posthuman Life-forms

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844) 1

Isaac Asimov, “Reason” (1941) 160

Alfred Bester, “Fondly Fahrenheit” (1954) 283

Avram Davidson, “The Golem” (1955) 303

Brian Aldiss, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” (1969) 443

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Nine Lives” (1969) 452

Ted Chiang, “Exhalation” (2008) 742

Computers and Virtual Reality

Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) 385

William Gibson, “Burning Chrome” (1982) 547

Pat Cadigan, “Pretty Boy Crossover” (1986) 587

Eileen Gunn, “Computer Friendly” (1989) 637

Evolution and Environment

Jules Verne, from Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) 26

Edmond Hamilton, “The Man Who Evolved” (1931) 79

Clifford D. Simak, “Desertion” (1944) 177

Frank Herbert, “Seed Stock” (1970) 477

Charles Stross, “Rogue Farm” (2003) 727

Gender and Sexuality

Leslie F. Stone, “The Conquest of Gola” (1931) 96

Frederik Pohl, “Day Million” (1966) 379

x coNteNtS

Samuel R. Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah . . .” (1967) 405

Pamela Zoline, “The Heat Death of the Universe” (1967) 415

Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” (1972) 507

James Tiptree Jr., “And I Awoke and Found Me Here

on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972) 516

Carol Emshwiller, “Abominable” (1980) 539

Greg Egan, “Closer” (1992) 683

Time Travel and Alternate History

Robert A. Heinlein, “ ‘All You Zombies—’” (1959) 324

Stanislaw Lem, “The Seventh Voyage” from Star Diaries (1971) 490

John Varley, “Air Raid” (1977) 525

Kate Wilhelm, “Forever Yours, Anna” (1987) 598

John Kessel, “Invaders” (1990) 654

Utopias/Dystopias

E. M. Forster, “The Machine Stops” (1909) 50

R. A. Lafferty, “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965) 359

Harlan Ellison, “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965) 367

Geoff Ryman, “Everywhere” (1999) 717

War and Conflict

Theodore Sturgeon, “Thunder and Roses” (1947) 189

Judith Merril, “That Only a Mother” (1948) 211

William Tenn, “The Liberation of Earth” (1953) 266

Cordwainer Smith, “The Game of Rat and Dragon” (1955) 309

Bruce Sterling, “We See Things Differently” (1989) 611

Acknowledgments 757

Further Reading 761

xi

Introduction . . . .

The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction was conceived and developed by the editors of the scholarly journal Science Fiction Studies (SfS). It refl ects no single editor’s viewpoint but rather a consensus among us that a good an- thology should include stories ranging from the nineteenth century to today, should exemplify a number of themes and styles characteristic of the genre, and should represent both the best and—not always the same thing—the most teachable stories in the fi eld. While our journal is known for a lively engagement with critical and cul- tural theory, it is also committed to exploring the disparate body of texts grouped under the rubric “science fi ction” (sf ). Any sf anthology necessarily declares a provisional canon of classics by prescribing a limited course of essential reading. Canonization is a dubious as well as a diffi cult enterprise, but we hope that our canon is less prescriptive than provocative. Our goal has been to suggest how varied the genre is, to showcase writers from the justly famous (Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin) to the unjustly neglected (Robert Sheckley, R. A. Laff erty, William Tenn), and to serve as a starting point for further reading. Many of the stories reprinted here, especially those published before 1960, fi rst appeared in the pulp magazines or later digests that served as the chief training ground for sf writers. Authors who published in these formats often spent their careers writing for pennies a word—if that—while in our own day, high-budget sf fi lms and television series continue to recycle their ideas without so much as a screen credit. Despite the ongoing popularity of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, there was no signifi cant North American market for full-length sf novels until the 1950s. The pulp magazines and postwar sf digests were therefore cru- cial publishing venues for the fi rst generations of American sf writers, from C. L. Moore and Edmond Hamilton to Robert A. Heinlein and Theodore Sturgeon. Their work appeared alongside reprinted tales of Wells, Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe, so that early readers of the pulps were being simul- taneously introduced to new writers and immersed in some of the best nineteenth-century sf. Although today’s North American sf market is geared

xii INtroductIoN

predominantly toward novels (the form in which most writers now make their reputations), a number of professional and semiprofessional venues— magazines, reprint anthologies, and, more rarely, original short-fiction an- thologies—still publish short sf. The more recently published selections in this volume strongly demonstrate the form’s continuing vitality.

Historical Origins and the Megatext

Origin narratives are always shaped by complex historical and ideological perspectives. Depending on the sf historian’s particular assumptions, the genre can trace its roots back to Lucian of Samosata’s satirical second- century story of a trip to the moon in his True History. Alternatively, the case has been made that sf began with the utopias and tales of great voy- ages of discovery written from the Renaissance through the eighteenth cen- tury—voyages echoed in the nineteenth century by Jules Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires. Many historians have argued that sf ’s origins lie in the techno-scientific cataclysms of the Industrial Revolution; in this context Mary Shelley’s cautionary tale Frankenstein (1818) is of particular interest. A different reading locates the genre’s origins in Darwinian views of evolu- tion, which shaped the scientific romances of H. G. Wells. Still others would set the starting point in the early twentieth century, arguing that science fiction developed generic coherence only after being popularized in the pulp magazines of the 1920s. This “new” genre, originally named scientifiction in Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, saw rapid expansion in the pages of pulps such as Wonder Stories and Weird Tales, where Hamilton’s “The Man Who Evolved” (1931) and Moore’s “Shambleau” (1933) first appeared. While each of these positions about the genre’s “true” origins has its defenders and the debate is unlikely ever to be resolved, these very different accounts, when taken together, offer striking testimony to science fiction’s complex history. At its core, science fiction dramatizes the adventures and perils of change. Although not always set in the future, sf ’s consistent emphasis on transfor- mation through time demonstrates the increasing significance of the future to Western techno-cultural consciousness. At the same time, sf retains its links to older literary forms and maintains strong generic connections to its literary cousins epic, fantasy, gothic horror, and satire. One of the more interesting developments in contemporary sf is the near disappearance of genre boundaries in such stories as John Kessel’s postmodern “Invaders” (1990). Meanwhile, sf elements are now frequently incorporated into the work of many writers usually associated with the literary mainstream, re- sulting in slipstream fictions by such writers as Thomas Pynchon, Jeff Noon, and Margaret Atwood.

INtroductIoN xiii

The original subtitle of Wells’s The Time Machine (1895) was “An Inven- tion,” and as the genre’s tangled history suggests, sf is constantly reinvent- ing itself, responding to contemporary scientific and cultural concerns and adapting or challenging prevailing narrative conventions. Polish author Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris (1961; trans. 1970), for instance, gains much of its impact from how it revises the assumptions of earlier first-contact stories such as Stanley G. Weinbaum’s optimistic “A Martian Odyssey” (1934). By stressing the difficulties—indeed, the impossibility—of comprehending the alien, Lem intervenes in sf ’s ongoing generic dialogue, showing that first contact might in the event be more of a non-contact. In contrast, James Tiptree Jr.’s “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972) takes a queer-feminist approach to first-contact conventions, with its dire tale of loving the alien all too well. Perhaps because of its twentieth-century history of publication in spe- cialized or niche formats such as pulp magazines, mass-market paperbacks, and sf digests, writers in the genre maintain unusually strong links with each other and with the community of sf readers. Writers of sf conduct long- distance conversations across generations, cultures, social settings, and his- torical challenges. Like all complex cultural forms, sf is rooted in past prac- tices and shared protocols, tropes, and traditions—all of which contribute to what is often called the sf megatext. A fictive universe that includes all the sf stories that have ever been told, the sf megatext is a place of shared images, situations, plots, characters, settings, and themes generated across a multiplicity of media, including centuries of diverse literary fictions and, more recently, video and computer games, graphic novels, big-budget films, and even advertising. Readers and viewers apply their own prior experience of science fiction—their own knowledge of the sf megatext—to each new story or film they encounter. Looking back to one of the earliest novels associated with sf, it is easy to see that the monstrous Creature in Frankenstein is a precursor of both Hawthorne’s Beatrice Rappaccini and the artificial intelligence hal in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Mark Twain’s Con- necticut Yankee informs Wells’s Time Traveller, who in turn establishes the basic template for all the time-travel tales of the twentieth century, including Heinlein’s “ ‘All You Zombies—’” (1959), which nonetheless offers its own original twist. The sf megatext encompasses specific characters (the mad scientist, the renegade robot, the savvy engineer, the mysterious alien, the powerful arti- ficial intelligence), environments (the enclosures of a spaceship, an alien landscape, the inner space of subjective experience), events (nuclear and

xiv INtroductIoN

other apocalypses, galactic conflicts, alien encounters), and, of particular significance, ethical and political concerns (questions about scientific re- sponsibility, about encounters with otherness, and about shifting definitions of what it means to be human). Every element in the megatext has been re- imagined many times; these reimaginings form the rich intertextual back- drop behind and between all sf stories. The more familiar readers are with the sf megatext, the more readily they will find their way into and through new stories. More experienced readers can appreciate how any particular work both depends and expands on the stories that have preceded it. William Gibson’s celebrated cyberpunk novels and stories—“Burning Chrome” (1982), for instance—borrowed many plot elements from familiar hard sf and noir conventions at the same time that they expanded the sf universe by challenging readers to imagine radically intimate relationships between human beings and increasingly pervasive cybernetic technologies. The impact of Gibson’s fiction lay in its revisionary use of familiar figures such as the cyborg to reveal the degree to which con- temporary techno-scientific culture has itself become science-fictionalized. Stories such as Greg Egan’s “Closer” (1992) and Charles Stross’s “Rogue Farm” (2003) build on cyberpunk’s posthuman foundations in their further explorations of the human-machine interface. In general, techno-scientific verisimilitude (not quite the same thing as scientific accuracy) is considered to be a sine qua non of works in the genre. More particularly, stories about science and technology constitute a sig- nificant strand of the sf megatext, from the dystopian nightmare of E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909), to the efforts of lunar explorers to decode the meaning of the mysterious alien artifact in Clarke’s “The Sen- tinel” (1951), to James Patrick Kelly’s revisionary story about the “cold equa- tions” of the physical universe in “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995). From the perspective of the sf megatext, every story is in dialogue with others in the genre, even as it aims to say something new. Like “Chicken Little,” the teem- ing, amorphous protein source of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s novel The Space Merchants (1952), the megatext is always growing and chang- ing, continually fed by new texts, new scientific speculation, new historical events, and new readers. Although authors in the genre share many concerns, they take diverse historical and cultural positions. They extrapolate unique futures, although many—from Heinlein, Le Guin, and Gibson to Frank Herbert and Cord- wainer Smith—set much of their fiction in different quadrants of one par- ticular future. Such writers settle in to explore the universes of their own making, their own personal megatexts. Some of our selections, such as

INtroductIoN xv

Asimov’s “Reason” (1941) and Smith’s “The Game of Rat and Dragon” (1955), suggest in miniature their authors’ consistent concerns, while other stories, including Heinlein’s “ ‘All You Zombies—’” and Herbert’s “Seed Stock” (1970), at first glance appear to be atypical. Our headnotes outline the author’s place in the genre and sketch the relationship of each selected story to the author’s work as a whole. As editors, we have aimed to include stories that not only repay a chrono- logical approach, illustrating sf ’s generic evolution, but that also intersect with some of the genre’s most frequently recurring topics. Among those spe- cifically highlighted here are the alien encounter, apocalypse, dystopia, gen- der and sexuality, time travel, and virtual reality.

Reading Sf

Readers who are new to science fiction learn new ways of reading. Many of the genre’s stories are set in the future, although its worlds are usually linked by extrapolation—a logic of projection—back to our own. Readers of sf must not only adjust their time-space positioning but also learn to nego- tiate connections between individual tales and the sf megatext. Further, they must often deal with neologisms (newly coined words) and other conjectural vocabulary that require them to fill in the semantic blanks with their imagi- nations. In contrast to mainstream fiction, science fiction represents worlds that do not exist here and now, although their existence might be possible in some other part of the universe or, more often, some other time. That time is usually ahead of readers: the future. Simplifying in the extreme, we might say that realist fiction writes about what exists while fantasy fiction deals with hopes and fears and dreams—emotional states rather than ideas. Science fiction, in contrast, writes about things that might be, although they are not yet and may never come to be. Science fiction’s “worlds of if ” (to cite the title of a Weinbaum story of 1935) are connected to the readers’ world through a logical (linear, causal, extrapolative) relationship, yet these sf worlds can also be metaphorical or symbolic. As Darko Suvin has argued, sf is a literature of cognitive estrange- ment that shows readers futures in which the present has shifted or meta- morphosed: they mirror our own world but in a distorted way. Cognitive estrangement is produced by a novum—a puzzling innovation—in every sf story. This novum distances (or estranges) readers from some received “truth”—for example, the idea that human nature is essentially unchanging is called into question in Frederik Pohl’s “Day Million” (1966). To Suvin, sf ’s “worlds of if ” offer estranged versions of the author’s/reader’s here and now; nonetheless, the future in sf is logically (cognitively) tied to the present.

xvi INtroductIoN

A number of critics have discussed what they term the reading protocols of sf—the approaches required for understanding the genre. Sf readers know that much of the story will not be clear at the beginning; they live with un- certainty through much, if not all, of a story such as Tenn’s “The Liberation of Earth” (1953). Some stories might introduce a single novum (for example, the cloned siblings in Le Guin’s “Nine Lives” [1969]), while others might teem with new things. As is fitting, the genre that addresses innovation and change can, in its own storytelling protocols, shift dramatically in response to social changes or new scientific ideas. Two important reading protocols identified for sf are Marc Angenot’s notion of the absent paradigm and Samuel R. Delany’s analysis of sf ’s sub- junctivity. The absent paradigm refers to those semantic blanks, noted above, that challenge the reader’s imagination to construct a new and dif- ferent world out of scattered hints and clues. Sf ’s stories strand readers in an unfamiliar place or time, forcing them to supply contextual meaning for the bits of alien information with which they are bombarded. Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950), for instance, is set in a post-apocalypse Man- hattan, but the nature and dimensions of the cataclysm must be puzzled out from the narrator’s offhand comments. The estranging effects of sf ’s absent paradigms are experienced in concentrated form in the short story, which can pack a density of futuristic or otherworldly implication into its brief space. The result can be dizzying, as in Ellison’s “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965), with its pyrotechnic style and array of new words—swizzleskid, minee, Smash-O, fallaron—that draw readers into a place and time ruled by a lethally efficient future form of capitalism. Sf ’s subjunctivity further complicates the reader’s task. According to Delany, the language of an sf text works differently from language in real- istic—or, to use his term, “mundane”—fiction. In his famous example, the sentence “Her world exploded” can, in a mundane story, only be a metaphor for a woman’s emotional state, whereas in science fiction it could be a literal description of the destruction of her home planet. This linguistic openness or indeterminacy means that sf always operates at a sentence-by-sentence level in the subjunctive mode: sf stories narrate not what can realistically happen at the present moment, but what might happen in future times and alien places—in sf ’s “worlds of if.” Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) displays subjunctivity in its very title, which sug- gests that what we take to be a settled referent (the processes of memory) can mean something quite different in an sf context—in this case because technological advances in Dick’s future world allow for the implantation, at a price, of artificial memories. Readers must accept that the referential

INtroductIoN xvii

functions of language in science fiction are usually, whether subtly or signifi- cantly, estranged. Although these terms—cognitive estrangement, absent paradigm, sub- junctivity—may seem forbidding, they are fully compatible with an intu- itive insight long held by fans: the genre conveys a sense of wonder. This experience—of the exhilarating, mind-expanding power of the best sf—is brought about by the same processes that such critics as Suvin, Angenot, and Delany have analyzed. As readers negotiate the distance between the estranged world of an sf story and their own reality—a process in which they must reconstruct an absent paradigm and decode the text’s subjunctivity— they come to grasp, and be dazzled by, the extraordinary span of time and space; they see the possibility of almost unthinkable social and technological changes. For those who are open to it, the genre’s unique demands provide rare delights, including a sense of awe at the vast transformative power of futurity.

Different Viewpoints, Different Worlds

Writers in the genre offer widely disparate visions of the world. Readers of sf therefore are invited to analyze divergent ideas as well as literary styles. Scholars, too, represent any number of critical and theoretical approaches, and the editors of SfS are no exception. We have designed this anthology to demonstrate the diversity of the genre and to encourage a broad range of thinking about it. While no anthology can incorporate all of sf ’s richness, we sought in choosing stories to acknowledge as much as possible the genre’s stylistic variety and its many topical interests. For several years, we read, dis- cussed, compared, analyzed, argued, compromised, conducted straw polls, and voted on dozens of potential stories. We asked members of the Science Fiction Research Association and the International Association for the Fan- tastic in the Arts for suggestions on what would be the ideal balance be- tween older and newer tales and what pedagogical materials would be most useful. Finally, we arrived at these fifty-two selections, printed in historical sequence, beginning with a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne published in 1844 and ending with a 2008 story by Ted Chiang. We hope that The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction will serve as a bridge not only to an appreciation of some of the best works of sf ever written but also to the world of sf scholarship. With that in mind, and using the many suggestions we received from our colleagues, we have included ancillary material: a critical bibliography that lists many of the most impor- tant studies in the field and an online “Teacher’s Guide”—available on the Wesleyan University Press website at

xviii INtroductIoN

sfanthologyguide>—that includes discussion questions for each story, avail- able Internet resources, illustrations such as magazine and book covers, sug- gestions for course design, and advice on student research. This anthology was created for the purpose of teaching sf at many levels, as well as for casual and critical reading by both neophytes and experts. Science fiction is complex and provocative as well as stimulating and enjoyable, rewarding thoughtful study in and out of the classroom. Welcome to the words and worlds of science fiction.

The Wesleyan anthology of

Science Fiction . . . .

1

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rappaccini’s Daughter . . . . { 1844 }

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, and used his family’s history there most famously in his novel The Scarlet Letter (1850), which drew on his ancestor’s role as a judge in the infamous Salem witch trials. According to his biographer James R. Mellow, Hawthorne borrowed from his own life for “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Like Giovanni, Hawthorne was a handsome and intense man prone to romantic entanglements who had an aff air with the metaphorically poisonous Mary Silsbee. Beatrice’s personality, however, seems closer to the character of the woman he eventually married, the secluded and in- telligent Sophia Peabody. Peabody suff ered from health problems that may have stemmed from her physician father’s overuse of drugs in treating her ailments as a child, so Dr. Peabody may have served as a model for Doctor Rappaccini. Hawthorne was part of the American Romantic movement of the mid- nineteenth century and was friends with other major fi gures in American Roman- ticism such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville. In the spirit of the times, he did not draw distinctions between art and science, using both in ways that would now be considered science fi ctional, not only in the story collected here but also in other stories such as “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” (1837), “The Birth-mark” (1843), and “The Artist of the Beautiful” (1844). As Hawthorne himself put it in “The Custom-House,” his introduction to The Scarlet Letter, his literary concern was with “a neutral territory . . . where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet and each imbue itself with the nature of the other.” In this neutral territory, Hawthorne allows science to be imbued with evocative metaphorical signifi cance and off ers plausible explanations from the world of the Actual to undermine seemingly im- possible events from the world of the Imaginary. Just as in The Scarlet Letter every miraculous event has a rational explanation and Dr. Chillingworth and Hester Prynne’s secret powers are explained in terms of medicine, so in “Rappaccini’s Daughter” selective breeding and the powers of suggestion can explain many of the story’s seemingly fantastic elements. Hawthorne’s description of the neutral territory in which he works is very much like that of the English Romantic and

2 NathaNIel haWthorNe

Gothic writer of Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelley, sometimes considered a found- ing mother of science fiction, who herself made a point of eschewing the super- natural. Much of what makes Hawthorne’s story so powerful, so psychologically and emotionally convincing, and so eerie, is its use of ambiguous metaphor and sym- bol to layer the tale with multiple meanings. This is a technique that later writers will continue to use to good effect, for example Gene Wolfe in “Useful Phrases” (1992).

A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice, which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since ex- tinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily, as he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment. “Holy Virgin, Signor!” cried old dame Lisabetta, who, won by the youth’s remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the chamber a habitable air, “what a sigh was that to come out of a young man’s heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of heaven, then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as bright sunshine as you have left in Naples.” Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window, and expended its fostering influences on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care. “Does this garden belong to the house?” asked Giovanni. “Heaven forbid, Signor!—unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any that grow there now,” answered old Lisabetta. “No; that garden is culti- vated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous Doctor, who, I warrant him, has been heard of as far as Naples. It is said he distils

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these plants into medicines that are as potent as a charm. Oftentimes you may see the Signor Doctor at work, and perchance the Signora his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that grow in the garden.” The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the cham- ber; and, commending the young man to the protection of the saints, took her departure. Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the gar- den beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it to be one of those botanic gardens, which were of earlier date in Padua than elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure- place of an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the center, sculptured with rare art, but so woefully shattered that it was im- possible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. A little gurgling sound ascended to the young man’s win- dow, and made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song unceasingly, and without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one century embodied it in marble and another scattered the perishable garniture on the soil. All about the pool into which the water subsided grew various plants, that seemed to require a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment of gigantic leaves, and in some instances, flowers gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the luster and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. Every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their individual virtues, known to the scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in com- mon garden-pots; some crept serpent-like along the ground, or climbed on high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it might have served a sculptor for a study. While Giovanni stood at the window, he heard a rustling behind a screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb of black. He was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin gray beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultiva-

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tion, but which could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart. Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape, and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of the deep intelligence on his part, there was no approach to intimacy between himself and these vegetable exis- tences. On the contrary, he avoided their actual touch, or the direct inhaling of their odors, with a caution that impressed Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man’s demeanor was that of one walking among malignant influ- ences, such as savage beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one moment of license, would wreak upon him some ter- rible fatality. It was strangely frightful to the young man’s imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present world? And this man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to grow—was he the Adam? The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his hands with a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only armor. When, in his walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice. But finding his task still too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a person affected with inward disease: “Beatrice! Beatrice!” “Here am I, my father! What would you?” cried a rich and youthful voice from the window of the opposite house—a voice as rich as a tropical sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. “Are you in the gar- den?” “Yes, Beatrice,” answered the gardener, “and I need your help.” Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much. She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and com-

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pressed, as it were, and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. Yet Giovanni’s fancy must have grown morbid while he looked down into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they—more beautiful than the richest of them—but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it was observable that she handled and in- haled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most sedulously avoided. “Here, Beatrice,” said the latter, “see how many needful offices require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered as I am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be consigned to your sole charge.” “And gladly will I undertake it,” cried again the rich tones of the young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to embrace it. “Yes, my sister, my splendor, it shall be Beatrice’s task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, which to her is as the breath of life.” Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly ex- pressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes, and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sis- ter performing the duties of affection to another. The scene soon terminated. Whether Dr. Rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had caught the stranger’s face, he now took his daughter’s arm and retired. Night was already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the plants, and steal upward past the open window; and Gio- vanni, closing the lattice, went to his couch, and dreamed of a rich flower and beautiful girl. Flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some strange peril in either shape. But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify what- ever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun’s decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni’s first movement on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced, that, in the heart

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of the barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely and luxuriant vegetation. It would serve, he said to himself, as a symbolic language to keep him in communion with Nature. Neither the sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that Giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. In the course of the day, he paid his respects to Signor Pietro Baglioni, professor of medicine in the university, a physician of eminent repute to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. The Professor was an elderly personage, apparently of genial nature, and habits that might almost be called jovial. He kept the young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveliness of his conversation, especially when warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an opportunity to mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the Professor did not respond with so much cordiality as he had antici- pated. “Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine,” said Profes- sor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of Giovanni, “to withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so eminently skilled as Rappac- cini. But, on the other hand, I should answer it but scantily to my conscience were I to permit a worthy youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance to hold your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Doctor Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty—with perhaps one single exception—in Padua, or all Italy; but there are certain grave objections to his professional character.” “And what are they?” asked the young man. “Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so in- quisitive about physicians?” said the Professor, with a smile. “But as for Rap- paccini, it is said of him—and I, who know the man well, can answer for its truth—that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.” “Methinks he is an awful man, indeed,” remarked Guasconti, mentally recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. “And yet,

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worshipful Professor, is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of science?” “God forbid,” answered the Professor, somewhat testily; “at least, unless they take sounder views of the healing art than those adopted by Rappac- cini. It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised within those substances which we term vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than Nature, without the assistance of this learned per- son, would ever have plagued the world withal. That the Signor Doctor does less mischief than might be expected, with such dangerous substances, is undeniable. Now and then, it must be owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; but, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should receive little credit for such instances of success—they being prob- ably the work of chance—but should be held strictly accountable for his fail- ures, which may justly be considered his own work.” The youth might have taken Baglioni’s opinions with many grains of allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare of long con- tinuance between him and Doctor Rappaccini, in which the latter was gen- erally thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical department of the University of Padua. “I know not, most learned Professor,” returned Giovanni, after musing on what had been said of Rappaccini’s exclusive zeal for science—“I know not how dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there is one object more dear to him. He has a daughter.” “Aha!” cried the Professor with a laugh. “So now our friend Giovanni’s secret is out. You have heard of this daughter, whom all the young men in Padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good hap to see her face. I know little of the Signora Beatrice save that Rappaccini is said to have instructed her deeply in his science, and that, young and beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a professor’s chair. Perchance her father destines her for mine! Other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about or listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of lachryma.” Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in reference to Doctor Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way, hap- pening to pass by a florist’s, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers. Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he could look down

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into the garden with little risk of being discovered. All beneath his eye was a solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred. In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the rich reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we have said, the garden was a solitude. Soon, however—as Giovanni had half hoped, half feared, would be the case—a figure appeared beneath the antique sculptured portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes, as if she were one of those beings of old classic fable that lived upon sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, the young man was even startled to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its character, that she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni whispered to himself, positively illumi- nated the more shadowy intervals of the garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the former occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and sweetness—qualities that had not entered into his idea of her character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might be. Nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gem-like flowers over the fountain—a resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have indulged a fan- tastic humor in heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress and the selection of its hues. Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers. “Give me thy breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for I am faint with common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I separate with gentlest fingers from the stem, and place it close beside my heart.” With these words, the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her bosom. But now, unless Giovanni’s draughts of wine had bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. A small orange colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni—but, at the distance from which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything so minute—it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard’s head. For an instant, the reptile contorted itself

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violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this re- markable phenomenon, and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else in the world could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and trembled. “Am I awake? Have I my senses?” said he to himself. “What is this being? Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?” Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer beneath Giovanni’s window, so that he was compelled to thrust his head quite out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense and painful curi- osity which she excited. At this moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had, perhaps, wandered through the city and found no flowers or verdure among those antique haunts of men until the heavy per- fumes of Doctor Rappaccini’s shrubs had lured it from afar. Without alight- ing on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that Giovanni Guasconti’s eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was dead—from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect. An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There she beheld the beautiful head of the young man—rather a Grecian than an Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold among his ringlets—gazing down upon her like a being that hovered in mid air. Scarcely knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had hitherto held in his hand. “Signora,” said he, “there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear them for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti!” “Thanks, Signor,” replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that came forth as it were like a gush of music; and with a mirthful expression half childish and half woman-like. “I accept your gift, and would fain recompense it with this precious purple flower; but if I toss it into the air, it will not reach you. So Signor Guasconti must even content himself with my thanks.” She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to respond to a stranger’s greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. But, few as the mo-

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ments were, it seemed to Giovanni when she was on the point of vanish- ing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance. For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that looked into Doctor Rappaccini’s garden, as if something ugly and monstrous would have blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a glance. He felt conscious of having put himself, to a certain extent, within the influence of an unintelligible power by the communication which he had opened with Beatrice. The wisest course would have been, if his heart were in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; the next wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the familiar and daylight view of Beatrice—thus bringing her rigidly and systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. Least of all, while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni have remained so near this extraordinary being that the proximity and pos- sibility even of intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination ran riot continually in producing. Guas- conti had not a deep heart—or, at all events, its depths were not sounded now; but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, which rose every instant to a higher fever-pitch. Whether or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately van- quishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly per- sonage, who had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much breath in overtaking him.