A common misconception of humans is that we are born good or evil. However, a much more significant factor other than genes is nurture. Who molded you into who you are today? Was it your parents and your friends? Or is it not a person but an event around you that impacts who you are? In the short story “The Half-Husky”, by Margaret Laurence Harvey was raised by an aunt who did not even want him, this resulted in him becoming a wicked human being, because his aunt raised him so poorly he reflected his behavior on the people around him - like Nanuk. In the novels of the “Grisha trilogy” by Leigh Bardugo, Alina is raised as an orphan and is one of the most powerful Grisha in all of Ravka who is given an opportunity to become a ruler with the …show more content…
Instead the environment we are raised in will change who we are and how we act. In the short story “The Half-Husky” by Margaret Laurence, Harvey is a prime example of this - as a child, he was very innocent and lacked a suitable understanding of the environment he was in, but as he grew up his aunt began to complain about how much of a nuisance he was in her life (complaining about no one wanting to date her because she already had a child). Growing up knowing that you are not wanted must be extremely difficult, because your life may seem without a purpose. Harvey - being raised by an aunt who does not want him - began to not want anything to do with other people. He began to model what his aunt did to him to other people, eventually reaching Nanuk and Vanessa. Nanuk is a dog, but not much different from Harvey as a pup Nanuk was very innocent, but once Harvey started torturing Nanuk by poking him with a stick, getting pepper in his eyes, and even setting him on fire! Nanuk became very cautious and aggressive around other people, the environment he was originally raised in with Vanessa was one with a lot of care, but once he was introduced to Harvey he went from extremely innocent to overly aggressive. Humans are not inherently good or evil, but are susceptible to change through their experiences in their
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What makes a person who they are is a difficult dilemma. Mark Twain's novel, "Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins" is a critical analysis of how nature and nurture can cultivate emotions and free will, which in turn affects the life of individuals. "Twain's faltering sense of direction began about slavery, moral decay, and deceptive realities (Kaplan 314). The debate of `nature versus nurture' has been one of the most intriguing scientific and cultural issues for most of the twentieth century, in determining the behavioral aspects of human beings. The changes in environment, society, education, political influences, family values and morals and other external influences, combined with physical genes determines how mankind will evolve into adulthood. Both nature and nurture, in combination with emotions and free will, control the behavior of human beings and determines who we are.
human monster that can only be developed through both nature and nurture, as well as a
True diary of a part time Indian is a very inspiring book. They let you see the good in everyone and they try not to focus on the bad. "Instead, it was Gordy who defended me. He stood with his textbook and dropped it. WHOMP!! Gordy showed a lot of courage standing up to a teacher like that. And his encourage inspired others. Penelope stood and dropped her textbook. And the Roger stood and dropped his textbook. WHOMP!! And then the other basketball players did the same (Sherman 175). Junior was around negative people all throughout his life. Some of these people, like Rowdy, was able to be good but under certain circumstances, become evil. All people start out good. It is on your own to decide if your going to stay good or turn evil. Even if someone is good, but gets pushed beyond their point, they will snap and break out into
...reate stories and go beyond nature. These stories themselves are often the motivation for what we determine to be evil upon examining an alternate story, but we do not have a choice about whether or not we tell stories at all. That is in our nature. Alternately, without our stories we would not experience good and beautiful.
The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something worthwhile for mankind. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to determine what makes a human being choose the way he/she behaves. Mary Shelley (1797-1851) published a novel in 1818 to voice her opinions about determining personality and the consequences and repercussions of alienation. Shelley uses the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make her point. Rousseau proposed the idea that man is essentially "good" in the beginning of life, but civilization and education can corrupt and warp a human mind and soul. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (hereafter referred to as Frankenstein), Victor Frankenstein’s creature with human characteristics shows us that people are born with loving, caring, and moral feelings, but the creature demonstrates how the influence of society can change one’s outlook of others and life itself by his reactions to adversity at “birth”, and his actions after being alienated and rejected by humans several times.
The environment in which you live shapes up your life, it determines who you become. Many people grow up in a great environment full of good influences, but that's not the case for everyone. There's several children that grow in an environment that has many negative influences especially for children. For instance, in the book Black Boy Richard Wright grew up in an environment full of violence, poverty, and racism. Those traits affected Richard Wright throughout his entire life. Richard Wright had trouble adapting to many things in life, and struggled a lot
We are each born with human nature, taught to be civil, but we watch evil. Most people would say that we are each born different, but we are actually all born with the same human nature that makes each of us do the things we do. In the book Lord of the Flies the author, Ellie Golding, is just coming out of World War 2, which has a great influence on how she feels about civilization. When a person commits an act of evil we blame that person, but have we ever thought that maybe they learned it from our “civil” community? Look at the lines separating human nature, civilization, and evil, you might find that it is not as firm as you think it is.
People said, “Evil communication corrupt bad manners,” if you live with some bad people, you will become a bad people. Do you agree this? When you were born, you had to have a family beside you. In my view, family is the place where affect children’s personality development because their member family directly affect them. For example, “the children grow up with an abuse, absolutely they will abuse someone as same as they were abuse when child” (Jackson Katz, Tough Guise). According to the survey, almost the children will be a doctor, thief, or crime if their parent is a doctor, thief, or crime. One more time, this prove that family will affect your personality
The way my friends and colleagues, and generally speaking, members of society are raised can impact them psychologically. Whether it is being put on a pedestal or being the victim of ignorance, experiences shape the attitude of humans. In “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” Lori Gottlieb talks about her patients with great childhoods instead of talking about the patients who had bad childhoods. As she listens to her patients, she realizes that the parents did too much for their children, and consequently set them up for failure. Due to overprotection and not much discipline, these children have concerns, unhappiness, and feelings of being lost. When she thinks of all the experiences her patients have had with their parents, she relates it to her experience of
Nurture is how one is brought up or raised. It includes social standards and customs in the area one was raised. Nurture varies from nature. Nature is one’s biological makeup, or how one was born. Caliban, for example, was born a monster. His mother was an evil witch named Sycorax. When Prospero first came on the island, he and Caliban got along and planned to dually rule the island. However, after Caliban attempted to rape Miranda, Prospero made Caliban his slave. Although Prospero attempted to turn Caliban good, his evil nature took over the attempted nurture. Michael Taylor in Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century describes the nature of Caliban.
We do not born with a set of identities, attitudes or values, eventually we started to develop those from our parents and family. We do not only learn from their teachings or sayings but also by observing them. If we grew up in environment where were loved, protected, and had high standards and expectations, we would learn to love and appreciate. Therefore, in our family, where we experience ideal conditions, we are more likely to be confident, content, and consistent. "Different studies of children and teens growing up in tough, poor neighborhoods show that parental warmth is associated with both social and academic competence" (Masten and Coatswaorth 209). Thus, secure family environmen...
A person's ability to develop is due to two factors, maturation and learning. Although maturation, or the biological development of genes, is important, it is the learning - the process through which we develop through our experiences, which make us who we are (Shaffer, 8). In pre-modern times, a child was not treated like they are today. The child was dressed like and worked along side adults, in hope that they would become them, yet more modern times the child's need to play and be treated differently than adults has become recognized. Along with these notions of pre-modern children and their developmental skills came the ideas of original sin and innate purity. These philosophical ideas about children were the views that children were either born "good" or "bad" and that these were the basis for what would come of their life.
...ing, it is safe to say that humans are not by nature evil but instead, they are good but easily influenced by the environment and society to act in evil way and do such evil things. You choose the road you want to take; either it’s the bad road or the good road. We are all born to live a life where we will be faced with good and evil things. We were not born to be an evil or bad person, but as you get older you make that choice. What do you want to be remembered as: the good or the bad person? Choose to be good over being bad because the rewards to your family, your friend, and yourself will always outweigh the bad.
A child is born with a brain ready to learn. That brain will quickly learn to speak, read, write etc. The child will also learn morals and consequences for his actions, but that is a much slower process. A child doesn’t learn in a vacuum, however. He will learn his behavior from his environment, and his parents are the models he will acquire most of his information from. A parent can tell his child “do as I say, not as I do”, but that will be far less effective than consistently modeling behaviors they want instilled in their child. Certainly there have been children who were raised in homes with overwhelming dysfunction who have broken the mold and do n...