What Are The Sensorimotor Stages In Frankenstein

517 Words2 Pages

Though Frankenstein’s creation is only two years of age, it has the cognitive ability of an adolescent, which the reader can observe its cultivation from infancy through adolescence. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a corpse from the body parts of random men. On a dreary November night, Frankenstein successfully reanimates the corpse. In a panic, Frankenstein leaves the newborn corpse and retreats to his room. Comparable to a child missing its parent, Frankenstein’s creation- henceforth referred to as “the creation”- hovers over him while he sleeps. Terrified, Frankenstein leaves his apartment and finds refuge in the city. The following day Frankenstein returns to his apartment to find it empty. Two years later, Frankenstein is in the wilderness and sees a figure moving …show more content…

Jean Piaget, a renowned child psychologist, studied the mental development of children and created four stages (or schemas): sensorimotor (0-2 years old), preoperational (3-7 years old), concrete operational (8-11 years old), and formal operations (12-15 years old). According to Carol Brown, a research student at Oxford University and former Psychology professor, the sensorimotor stage begins when “the child experiences the world (mainly) through its immediate perceptual and physical (sensory and motor) abilities” (Brown 48). An example of this stage is when the creation is overwhelmed with sensations. While recounting its life, it tells Frankenstein, “a strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses” (Shelley 92). The creation even stumbles when he begins to walk for the first time, showing that his motor skills are not yet completely established. These examples attest to the creation being a newborn baby in the sensorimotor stage of

Open Document