Nature Vs Nurture Frankenstein

Nature vs Nurture: Human vs Monster
Written in a time of Romanticism, Mary Shelley brings to question the true defining factors of what it really means to be a human being. Shelley tells a story of a created being, not born of a mother, as he discovers the process of tabula rasa, or blank slate. The idea of tabula rasa is that every individual being starts out with nothing, like blank slate. As the being develops, the world impacts every aspect of his or her life: beliefs, behaviors, preferences, and so on, much like when a person would write on a slate. Although Victor Frankenstein’s creature isn’t brought into the world in the way that all humans are, his personality and actions are formed by factors through which the world writes on …show more content…
In order to do anything in life, a person must first gain the necessary knowledge to complete the task at hand. As the story progresses, the creature gains knowledge about himself and the things around him, just as all human beings experience. One of the first things that the creature gains to greaten his humanity comes when he gains his senses, an occurrence that is explained by him as, “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.” Although it takes the creature some time to figure out how his senses worked and what they meant, sight, touch, sound, and smell are the first real human traits that he acquires. It is essential that the creature learned how to distinguish and use his senses so that he could continue to figure out the things around him. All human beings experience basic sensations such as hunger, temperature, and fatigue. Soon after learning of his senses, the creature also experiences sensations, such as hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. The creature explains these sensations by saying, “...I felt tormented by hunger and thirst… I ate some berries... slaked my thirst at the brook; and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.” The creature then uses these senses to learn more about the things around him. For example, one of the very first learning experiences the creature encounters happens when comes across fire while in the woods one day. The creature describe the actions he took and what resulted from doing so, “In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.” The creature was surprised by how his senses, in this particular case touch, were able to produce such a reaction, and from here, figured out how to use his senses to his benefit, such as