More handpicked essays just for you.
How does environment shape the character of a child
Nature vs nurture in human development
The role of nature vs nurture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I was, have made me what I am” (Shelley 92). Frankenstein’s Creature presents these lines as it transitions from a being that merely observes its surroundings to something that gains knowledge from the occurrences around it. The Creature learns about humanity from “the perfect forms of [his] cottagers” (90). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein offers compelling insights into the everlasting nature versus nurture argument. Her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “Treat a person ill, and he will become wicked.” Shelley believes that the nurture of someone, or something, in the Creature’s case, forms them into who they become and what actions they take. While this is true for Frankenstein’s Creature, the same cannot be said about Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s Creature, or the Creature, presents an example of the environment affecting the personality and actions of a being. During the early part of its life, the Creature only observed the nature around itself. It explains its reaction to different elements such as darkness and fire. On light versus darkness, it states: “A stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me, …show more content…
The Creature, Victor Frankenstein’s creation, is shaped into a monster through its experiences, instead of the nature of itself, which is more expected. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, is shaped into a monster because of his mind’s power-hungry nature. Victor treats his creature poorly and he himself becomes wicked. While the Creature also becomes wicked in the end, its actions are more justified because multiple people treated it poorly, causing the Creature to lash out. Even though Victor Frankenstein and the Creature both turn into wicked monsters, to some extent, only one of
The Concepts of Creation and Nurture in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 she had lost her own. mother and three children. It is against this background of loss that Many chose to explore the possibility of bringing the dead back to life. It is a good thing.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who decides to play God and creates his own human unorthodoxly. Unfortunately, Frankenstein rejects his creation and forces it to live in fear and obliviousness of the world. Throughout the book, the reader is able to witness the character development within the Creature; he grows from a benevolent and benign man to a spiteful and ravenous murderer. In spite of this, I have great compassion and sympathy for the Creature. In order to understand this reasoning, we must take three factors into consideration. Firstly, we have the realize the aspects that drove the Creature into becoming an angry person. Second, we must acknowledge how human nature is. Lastly, we must consider who is to be blamed for the Creature’s actions.
In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, a man named Victor Frankenstein discovers how to effectively create life and reincarnate the dead. Victor successfully puts together the Creature out of body parts he had found in a nearby graveyard.Horrified by what he created, he runs away from the Creature as soon as the Creature came to life, and the monster runs away to form his own experiences. The Creature then goes on to murder many people and whilst having to observe other people to form his own ideals and sense of morality. The Creature’s demented sense of morality affected how he treated other people, and the Creature began to acquire a very violent lifestyle, and a relentless lust for revenge against his creator, Victor. The Creature began to harm and even kill those that Victor holds dear, and Victor attempts to hunt him down in search of his own revenge.
While many scientists contributed to the nature versus nurture argument in the past, it is a topic greatly debated today. Modern scientists agree that a mixture of nature and nurture contributes to growth and development. However, scientists in generations past agreed that nurture was the most important factor in growth. Likewise, the effect of nurture on nature argument is prevalent to describe the fall of the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where the monster’s growth results from the hostile environment he lived in, the fact that he was forced to teach himself the ways of life, and the base nature provided for a combination of the factors mentioned before which all contributed and built upon one another.
Andrew Lustig proposed a great question to the readers of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, “How far should we go in out efforts to alter nature, including human nature? As stewards of God’s creation what are our responsibilities?” (Lustig 1) This question results in theme of nature vs. nurture in the novel. The nature vs. nurture debate is an important topic in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. The two central characters, Victor Frankenstein and the creature that he creates; both, characters were raised differently. The nature and the nurture of their upbringing can be a cause of why they are, the way they are. Victor and his creature are subject to very different nurturing styles. Shelley also incorporates the representations of light and fire. This representation is key to the nature vs. nurture discussion in the novel.
Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a story about the dangers of knowledge and the consequences of overstepping moral and ethical boundaries. By examining Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through a psychoanalytic lens, it can be interpreted that the creature is a mirror of Victor Frankenstein’s personality. Psychoanalysis argues that the conscious and unconscious mind are made up of the id, superego and ego. In order to self-actualize the conscious and unconscious mind must be in equilibrium. The creature and Victor both strive for self-actualization through their yearning to understand the world. They share the experience of lower-level emotions like the need for revenge. Ultimately, the destruction in the novel is rooted in Victor’s and the creature’s experience of parental abandonment,
Frankenstein and his abominable creation are two characters inexorably linked with eachother, as father and son, as inventor and invention, and even as reflections of eachother. Their conflict deals with themes of the morality of science and the fears of child birth, and their characters are drawn from a wealth of experience and reading. Shelley’s doppleganger of mankind is like a twisted vision of reality; based in some sense on reality but wildly taken out of proportion, the monster is so inhuman that it cannot reconcile itself with its master or the world of humanity. Its tragic story serves as a warning of what mankind could become as well as a reflection of Shelley’s own personal demons, and her creation has changed the face of literature.
Throughout Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the reader is lead to sympathize with the monstrous creature, which was created by Victor Frankenstein. Despite any internal contradictions, the creature has the indisputable outward appearance of a monster, one repulsive to even his own creator. Inevitably, the appearance becomes the creature’s most significant quality, which eliminates any recognition of other, more human, qualities. As a result, any possibility of acceptance within human society are completely destroyed. The creature himself even recognizes this fact. Expressing many human qualities, such rejection and the consequential loneliness has a tremendous impact on the creature, especially in the impressionable years after his initial animation. With the psychological effects caused by these factors, the creature is sent on a rampage, causing tragedy throughout the course of the novel. Many may question Victor’s culpability and lack of responsibility over his creation; however, the ultimate blame for the events must be placed while considering the situation on a larger scale. Without a structured beginning to life, the creature is subjected to the harsh society around him, whose reactions only lead the creature to exile and psychological torment, justifying his wrongful actions.
Frankenstein, speaking of himself as a young man in his father’s home, points out that he is unlike Elizabeth, who would rather follow “the aerial creations of the poets”. Instead he pursues knowledge of the “world” though investigation. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the meaning of the word “world” is for Frankenstein, very much biased or limited. He thirsts for knowledge of the tangible world and if he perceives an idea to be as yet unrealised in the material world, he then attempts to work on the idea in order to give it, as it were, a worldly existence. Hence, he creates the creature that he rejects because its worldly form did not reflect the glory and magnificence of his original idea. Thrown, unaided and ignorant, into the world, the creature begins his own journey into the discovery of the strange and hidden meanings encoded in human language and society. In this essay, I will discuss how the creature can be regarded as a foil to Frankenstein through an examination of the schooling, formal and informal, that both of them go through. In some ways, the creature’s gain in knowledge can be seen to parallel Frankenstein’s, such as, when the creature begins to learn from books. Yet, in other ways, their experiences differ greatly, and one of the factors that contribute to these differences is a structured and systematic method of learning, based on philosophical tenets, that is available to Frankenstein but not to the creature.
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
In Frankenstein, various themes are introduced. There are dangerous knowledge, sublime nature, nature versus nurture, monstrosity, and secrecy and guilt. I chose a main theme as nature versus nurture. Nature is some traits that a person is born with, and nurture is an environment that surrounds a person. The novel indirectly debates whether the development of individual is affected more by nature or by nurture through Victor and the Monster.
The nature vs. nurture discussion is extremely vital in Blessed Virgin Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein and so the creature he creates every have academic degree innate nature that factors into each of their personalities. Frankenstein and so the creature unit of measurement subjected to 2 really totally different nurturing styles. although every nature and nurture unit of measurement necessary throughout the novel, the character argument is guilty for the season of Victor Frankenstein, whereas the nurture argument is guilty for the season of the creature. Shelley makes this idea clear to the reader through her powerful words once describing Victor’s and so the creature’s personalities.
Throughout Frankenstein, one assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is the true monster. While the creation’s actions are indeed monstrous, one must also realize that his creator, Victor Frankenstein, is also a villain. His inconsiderate and selfish acts as well as his passion for science result in the death of his friend and family members and ultimately in his own demise. Throughout the novel, Shelley investigates the idea of monstrosity. She makes the point that a monster does not have to be genuinely evil in order to be considered monstrous.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is a novel of interpersonal struggle between inborn traits versus the self determined willingness to work for success. The author demonstrates the contrasting personalities of Victor and the Creature specifically in regard to the nature they are born with in contrast to who they made of themselves. Innate aspects hinder personal growth for the Creature although he works hard to become a self-made man, whereas nurturing miens obstruct growth for the dignified Victor despite his fortunate nature. Shelley demonstrates sympathy with a Creature who tries to overcome his monstrous form more than a gentleman who abases him in order to convey that no matter how hard he tries to overcome his nature, personal choices can only take him so far. Through contrasting Victor’s and the Creature’s innate personas and willingness to achieve success, Shelley is allowing the reader to question whether or not a person is able to work past his genetic boundaries and inherent instincts to become whoever he wants to be, or, if he is stuck having the same success level of his parents due to his intrinsic nature. Both scenarios play a key role in the character’s lives; if Shelley had not embedded this “nature versus nurture” theme into the plotline, then the plot would have ceased to exist due to a lack of conflict on the Creature’s part.
After his creation, Frankenstein’s monster is left in isolation, cursed to endure people’s hatred towards him. This revulsion met by onlookers is merely based on the creature’s hideous looks. The monster is not actually a monster at all. He displays more humanity than many other characters in Frankenstein. The ultimate irony is that the prejudicial belief is what caused the reanimated human to become a monster. In the nature versus nurture debate, proponents of the nature theory believe that a person is unchanging and that one’s experiences do not affect that person’s behavior. If this were true, the monster would not change as a result of his interactions with humans. It is undeniable that the creature does immoral things, but when Frankenstein’s monster saves a little girl from drowning, Mary Shelley takes a clear stance that the creature was naturally noble but became monstrous as a result of interactions with humans.