to be saved. Although in distress, Beatrice accepts to drink the antidote for the sake of Giovanni and dies like the heroine of a tragic romance. Dr. Rappaccini remains a mysterious character, described only by his rival/enemy Professor Baglioni. Dr. Rappaccini is represented as a Faustian/diabolical figure, unnaturally ambitious and with cruel hidden motivations. Only at the end his intentions are revealed: he created the garden for his daughter and her future suitor, hoping to place them above all other creatures, just like God had created the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. The end of the story leaves the reader shocked and filled with horror as well as confused about the ambiguity in meaning and moral of the story. Further Gothic elements are the theme of morality, the great deal of symbolism, the description of strong emotions (love, jealousy, ambition), the setting in a distant past, in a place with a possibly dark history. Sources The name of Rappaccini's daughter is a reference to Dante's Beatrice, allegory of Divine Wisdom and Divine Grace: the name means "she who brings bliss", "she who makes blessed". Dante meets her in the Garden of Eden, while a hundred angels scatter flowers above and around her (Purgatory Canto XXX:19–39). According to Octavio Paz, the sources of Hawthorne's story lie in Ancient India. In the play Mudrarakshasa, one of two political rivals employs the gift of a visha kanya, a beautiful girl who is fed on poison. This theme of a woman transformed into a phial of venom is popular in Indian literature and appears in the Puranas. From India, the story passed to the West and contributed to the Gesta Romanorum, among other texts. In the 17th century, Robert Burton picked up the tale in The Anatomy of Melancholy and gave it a historical character: the Indian king Porus sends Alexander the Great a girl brimming with poison. In Hawthorne's story, the character Pietro Baglioni draws a parallel between Beatrice's fate and an old story of a poisonous Indian girl presented to Alexander, a tale that appears to be based on the Burton/Browne story. Also, the University of Padua is famed for its vast botanical garden, which was founded in 1545. But whether the garden actually influenced Hawthorne in writing "Rappaccini's Daughter" is not known. It is also possible that Hawthorne was inspired by the character Elizabeth's grotesque revenge in the 1833