The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall. The desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall, Francis Bacon. The two short stories Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorn and By the Waters of Babylon, by Stephen Vincent Bena ©t each possess this common theme, a curious main character, and a nature oriented setting.
The theme (or gist) of both short stories boldly proclaims knowledge, if misused, can lead to destruction or corruption. In the short story, Rappaccini's Daughter, Rappaccini, a world famous botanist, has a daughter, Patricia, who becomes more his experiment than offspring. Rappaccini creates a plant with poisonous fumes that he makes his daughter smell and care for. Having grown up with the poison, she herself becomes the poison and in the end becomes destroyed. Within the short story By the Waters of Babylon, modern society no longer exists. People who had been previously living on the earth progress too far and learn so much in a short time, they cant handle their knowledge and destroy themselves. Too much knowledge can lead to destruction, just like Rappaccini knew too much and destroyed his daughter, the people in the modern world learned too much and destroyed themselves.
Each short story has a very curious main character that discovers something tragic. Geovani, the main character in Rappaccini's Daughter, sees Patricia one day in Rappaccini's garden. He falls in love with her, but soon realizes something not quite right about the girl because everything she touches dies. When Geovani finally figures out the truth, Patricia's life revolved around poison, she has already died. John, the main character in By the Waters of Babylon wants to follow his dream and find out what destroyed the mysterious gods. After a long journey he arrives in what used to be New York City. While sleeping John discovers the truth in another dream, the gods he feared were really just people and they had been destroyed by some kind of bomb.
