Tabula Rasa Frankenstein Quotes

Mary Shelley’s adamant position on Tabula Rasa is conveyed throughout her science fiction novel, Frankenstein, which entails the miserable life of Victor Frankenstein's Creature. The experiences and treatment the Creature receives from the world around him all add onto his blank slate. She uses the Creature’s lessons, trials, treatment, and goals to show how the environment affect the Creature’s behaviour in both a positive and negative light. When the Creature is first brought to life, Victor’s neglect is evident when he recalls, “I had covered myself with some clothes..I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain...I sat down and wept” (119). Victor’s is callous and negligent towards his

Although the cottagers were unaware of his presence, he took it upon himself to collect wood for their fire, clear snow paths, and other various helpful acts which show his growing concern for their wellbeing and learns there is some good among the bad. As time passed, the Creature grew more frustrated with his lack of companionship when he questions, “But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses...What was I?” (120) He had grown to admire the cottagers, but when they began to add more love and happiness into their lives, the Creature learns that he will never obtain what they have. This positive situation turned into malignant comparison that generated negative, intrusive thoughts and once again amplified his hatred towards the abandoning Victor. In attempt to relieve his loneliness and associate with the cottagers, he decides to talk to De Lacey, the blind old man and as a result was attacked by his family, he claims, “I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained”