Examples Of Nurture In Frankenstein

The gothic novel Frankenstein emphasizes the substantial impact people in society have on an individual’s mentality, through the creature’s gradual fall into an abominable character as a result of his hostile environment and scarring interactions. The creature himself only becomes this repulsive monster we hear and read about because of his prolonged exposure to violence, neglect, and abuse throughout the novel during what would be considered the critical phases of his cognitive development, concluding that personalities are affected more by nurture than they are by nature. From the instance the creature was conceived he experienced the pains of rejection from his father Victor Frankenstein, the one who is supposed to dote upon him like a mother would upon the long awaited newborn child. Based solely on nature the creature should have been breathtakingly stunning, with only the best features handpicked for his creation; however, instead the creature is breathtakingly gruesome. The novel successfully uses extreme words such as convulsed, unearthly ugliness, and shriveled to …show more content…
His actions here are equivalent to those of a baby, the creature dumbly smiles, speaks incoherently, and futilely attempts to grab the attention of his parent, or in this case giver of life Frankenstein, all while being blissfully oblivious to everything else. Typically this type of behavior would be viewed as innocent or even endearing, however instead the words jaws and wrinkled are used to describe the scene. “Jaws” evokes a darker, more menacing animalistic aura while “wrinkles”, typically associated with the elderly who are closer to death, are a sign of decay of the human body, both a stark contrast with the image of a newborn baby. This kind of reaction without a doubt would leave some level of psychological damage, that would only continue to grow over the years and transform the creature into the very monster everyone perceives him