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Moral message in Frankenstein
How was nature vs nurture presented in frankenstein
How was nature vs nurture presented in frankenstein
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Nature vs. Nurture is the lead debate in the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein. One of the main characters, the monster, has an intuitive nature that makes up his personality and way of life but is condemned to a very different nurturing style. The author Mary Shelley makes it clear that the creature is not born a monster, but that society makes him one by the way he gets treated.
Victor is a father figure to the creature because he has given life to it but immediately abandons him due to anger and fear of the creature turned out physically. The monster was left to fend for himself and describes how he is treated by the world around him. Everyone judges him by his appearance but he only wants acceptance. The author makes use of light as a symbol for curiosity and knowledge through the creatures experience with fire. The monster describes his experience as “overcome with…the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers” (Shelley 81). The creature is not capable of understanding why this element of nature brought him horrific pain, thus igniting curiosity for human knowledge.
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The monsters lacked environmental development (nurture) due to being abandoned by his creator.
When the monster was given life to he didn’t know any better, like a child. Society judged him on his physical appearance but he was good of heart. All this torture from society was emotionally draining him until he had enough and started lashing out and causing ill deeds. The monster was left to care for himself and had no one to guide or nurture him in any way. “Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance towards all of mankind” (Shelley). When the creature makes his way to Geneva he encounters himself with Victor’s younger brother, William. The creature then finds out William is a Frankenstein and becomes enraged and takes out all his anger towards Victor on William so that Victor can also feel pain. This was only the beginning of the monsters terrifying
acts. The creature becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because of how society made him to be a real monster. The monster was not born a real monster; he was born innocent, not knowing right from wrong. Society turned him into a real monster causing him to perform horrific actions. His physical appearance brought fear to people and terrified them making them angry and violent towards him. The monster is constantly fueled with degradation adding towards his anger to mankind. Victor describes his feelings toward the “demoniacal corpse to which [he] had so miserably given life to” (Shelley 40) without even getting to know his creation or teaching him how to act. Perhaps the creature would have shown compassion to others if he had been taught compassion himself. One of the main themes in this novel is how society judges one another. The creature was “born” innocent, wanting to be loved but because of his lack of nurture and how society viewed him he was filled with anger causing him to kill other human beings. His nature became his self-fulfilling prophecy, how society viewed him as anyways. Society judged a book by its cover.
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 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 theme of nature vs. nurture is highly debated in the field of psychology and is quite a prevalent topic of the novel Frankenstein. Nature vs. nurture is a psychology term related to whether hereditary genes or the environment
As a tragic hero, Victor’s tragedies begin with his overly obsessive thirst for knowledge. Throughout his life, Victor has always been looking for new things to learn in the areas of science and philosophy. He goes so far with his knowledge that he ends up creating a living creature. Victor has extremely high expectations for his creation but is highly disappointed with the outcome. He says, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 35). Frankenstein neglects the creature because of his horrifying looks, which spark the beginning of numerous conflicts and tragedies. At this point, the creature becomes a monster because of Victor’s neglect and irresponsibility. The monster is forced to learn to survive on his own, without anyone or anything to guide him along the way. Plus, the monster’s ugly looks cause society to turn against him, ad...
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.
Are nature and nurture required when creating a person? In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the nature vs. nurture discussion is put to the test by the actions of the main character Dr. Frankenstein's creation: a monster. In the novel Dr. Frankenstein is enthralled with the scientific creation of life and creates what he thinks will be a human but actually turns out to have the makings of a monster. Dr. Frankenstein is terrified by his creation and abandons it by running away and leaving it locked up. The monster breaks out of Dr. Frankenstein's confines and goes into the world to explore in his surroundings and hates his creator for not caring for him. By looking at environmental effects on a child's intellectual ability to learn, and a child's inherent sense of direction it is apparent that at birth the human mind is a blank slate.
Victor finds his monster absolutely repulsive, and even nauseating. This seen in the following quotation, “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.” (Shelley 36) Dr. Frankenstein has never seen anything so horrible and soon falls ill both from the sight of it and the realization that his monster is now out in the world and it could be doing anything. This shows how his drive for knowledge to be able to create life is damaging his health both mentally and physically. Furthermore, when the monster escapes from Victor’s laboratory it stangles Victor’s brother, William Frankenstein, to death. Victor must now bear the guilt knowing that he is responsible for the death because he created the monster and allowed it to escape. He must also keep the beast a secret from everyone else for fear the he would be held responsible for his brother’s death or they will believe he has gone insane, both of which results in Vict...
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.
The debate of nature versus nurture has been argued for a long period time. The concept of tabula rasa was popularized by John Locke; it stated that babies are born into this world without innate knowledge. Knowledge and personality are developed through experiences and environment, emphasising the nurture in the nature-nurture split. At first blush, Frankenstein avidly supports the theory but in some other parts it does not.
People are defined by their environment and how they react to their environment. Environments that appear to be perfect on the outside may very well be the cause of misery in man's life because one must be able to cope with their environment. Victor could not cope with his environment and lashed out at the world by trying to attain power. However, things do not always go as planned, and sometime this may be beneficial. One should not judge by external appearance alone. It is what is on the inside that counts. Had Victor Frankenstein been taught ethics such as this, his life, as well as the lives of those he loved, could have been saved. Also, the life of the creature could have been free of pain and hatred. The monster is a symbol for the outcasts and rejected of society. He is also a reflection of Victor, meaning that Victor was also considered an outcast. The reality of an animated object reflecting something that one does not want to see, combined with being alone in the world, is enough to drive man mad. The monster, in some ways, creates a harsh reality for Victor. Either love what you create or be destroyed by it.
In 1818 Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brings a creature to life. The creature kills William, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth. Victor had promised to make a female creature for the creature, but he did not fulfill his promise. This makes the creature enraged. The creature runs away and Victor follows him. Victor gets on a boat with Walton. Victor dies and the creature comes and is very sad that his creator has died. The creature says that he must end his suffering and he jumps into the ocean. In the novel Frankenstein, Shelley uses the theme of nature to show how it is like the characters of the story and how it affects the characters.
He had asked Victor to create him another monster as a companion and if he doesn’t keep his promise, then he will be miserable. When Victor goes to England with the intention of creating this promised monster, his friend Henry follows him. After several months, Victor destroys the half created creature and this upsets the monster very much so because he wants this companion. When he kills Henry, the monster distinctly planned it so that Victor would be blamed for the murder. Through all this confusion on who killed Henry, Victor knew all along that the monster did it. At this point, Victor knew that he must return to Geneva to protect his family whom he loved very much (Shelley 181). Since this monster killed Henry, Victor knew that his family was now is in danger. The monster is very happy that Victor is having to suffer because, Victor is now feeling the loneliness that he feels all the time. Though the monster’s character is not evil, the pain he feels is what he wants his creator to feel. His revenge only increases throughout the book because he is only longing for a fellow companion that Victor can only give him, but yet he is choosing not to create it. The anger that is within the monster is only growing and this is increasing the possibilities of him hurting more
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, they believed that “Nature refers to all of the genes and heredity factors that influences who we are as a person from our physical appearance to our unique characteristics” and “Nurture refers to all the environmental variables that impacted who we were, including our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and our surrounding culture” (Bergeman). In her novel Frankenstein,
Before science was the answer to everything, there was a very popular question which plagued everyone’s minds. “Is a child born or made?” Did genetics play a big factor in the outcome of a child’s behavior or did it have to do with how the child was raised by their parents? After much research, we know now that a child is made up of a combination of genetics and learned behavior. Similarly, in Frankenstein, the monster and Victor have had very different lives growing up.
The debate of nature versus nurture is evident in the novel Frankenstein by the way that the creation turned into a monster. To explain how this debate comes into play, first more knowledge about what