Frankenstein One of the Most

Frankenstein

One of the most important themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the question of nature vs. nurture, because the reader must determine whether the monster's violent nature is due to an innate violence or because of the way he has been treated by people. The story presents seemingly conflicting accounts of the question of nature vs. nurture, with Victor arguing for an innate human nature that separates people from the monster, and the monster arguing in favor of an interpretation that places more emphasis on taught behaviors and ways of thinking. By examining the way in which Victor Frankenstein regards his work in building the monster, the monster's time spent watching the De Lacey family, and the monster's decision to get revenge on humanity for his own existence, one can see how the story begins by hinting that nature is what dictates an individual's later actions, but through the story of the monster ends up demonstrating that nurture is far more important in dictating how a person will behave, and furthermore, that if there is any kind of innate human nature, it is towards violence and cruelty, rather than compassion and beauty, as suggested by Victor.

The first important instance where the idea of nature vs. nurture appears is in Victor's recounting of how he built the monster. When he is describing the final stages of his work, Victor notes that "the dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work to a near conclusion" (Shelley 91). By mentioning his "human nature," Victor is suggesting that there is something inherent to human beings that would be opposed to his work, and although some of the motivation behind this suggestion is likely due to Victor's subsequent guilt over the deaths caused by his work, for the most part it serves to suggest that there is something about the monster that is antithetical to human nature, especially because he immediately precedes this comment by noting that "the dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials" (Shelley 91). Thus, it is not so much Victor's goal which offends his supposed "human nature," but rather the materials themselves, which ultimately end up forming the monster's body. This passage is especially important for the story's discussion of nature vs. nurture because Victor is proposing two different things that are both challenged by the monster's own experience (as will be discussed in a moment).

Firstly, Victor is suggesting that there is an innate human nature to human beings that dictates at least some part of their personality, and secondly, that this human nature is inherently opposed to the monster and his existence. At first glance this seems a generally reasonable suggestion, or at least one in line with many interpretations of human morality (often based on religion), Victor's reaction to the monster's appearance upon waking suggests that Victor's claims towards a human nature inherently opposed to the monster are not genuine, but rather an attempt to shield himself from blame by suggesting that he, as a human, had something inherently more moral than the monster. This can be seen when Victor claims that "the different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature," because he says this before describing how it was not until he had finished with his work that he became disgusted with the monster (Shelley 98). This directly contradicts his earlier account of his "human nature," and serves to demonstrate that this human nature, far from being a kind of universal, inherent quality, is merely Victor's way of avoiding the blame for his own mistakes and bad decisions. By claiming that there is some part of nature that dictates his reactions, Victor attempts to shield himself from some of the blame surrounding all the people who died as a result of his work, but the monster's own account of his time learning how to speak demonstrates just how guilty Victor really is, because it shows that the most important thing dictating someone's actions is how he or she is treated by others.

After Victor abandons the monster out of fear and horror, the monster makes his way to the words, where he discovers the De Lacey family and watches them. He learns to speak by finding "that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds" and studying the words they used, and he becomes acquainted with literature by finding some forgotten books (Shelley 239, 280). As "nurture is the support for growth provided by human beings and human culture, and is therefore essentially educational," the monster's experience with the De Lacey family is a clear instance where nurture functions to transform someone's personality and behavior (.Stables 3). The process of learning to read and speak is evidence enough that monster defies any interpretations of behavior that suggest that nature dictates development more than nurture, because after only a relatively short while watching the De Lacey family, "the past was blotted from [the monster's] memory," so that he was only concerned with learning and aiding the family to which he had become attached (Shelley 249). Nonetheless, the monster states explicitly that his personality and decisions are dictated by nurture when he says "I shall related events, that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am" (Shelley 250). This directly contradicts Victor's claim that there is some inherent human nature, because the monster recognizes that his perceptions of the world and attitude towards humanity is not born out of his existence as a reanimated collection of body parts, but rather due to the way people have treated him.

While the De Lacey family's discovery of the monster with the blind old man leads to his banishment and is one of the first instances of human cruelty to the monster, the event which truly impacts his view of humanity is when he rescues a little girl from drowning. After saving a little girl from drowning and following her and "the person from whom she had playfully fled" into the woods, this person shoots the monster (Shelley 315). The states that he "hardly knew why" he was following them, but it seems reasonable to presume that the monster, having saved the little girl, expected to receive some gratitude or companionship from the man for his good deed. Instead, the monster recalls, "I had saved a human life from destruction, and, as a recompense, I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound, which shattered flesh and bone," so that "the feelings of kindness and gentleness, which I had entertained but a few moments before, gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth" (Shelley 316). "Inflamed by pain," the monster vows "eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind" (Shelley 316). More than any other, this event demonstrates the centrality of nurture to the development of someone's character, because the monster is not inherently violent, but is rather made that way as a response to the violent actions of human beings, demonstrating that his monstrous character is "a construct within [his] nurture," rather than "a piece of [his] nature" (Duyfhuizen 477). While the gunshot "shattered flesh and bone," it also shattered the monster's understanding of humanity and the experience of kindness and goodness he had with the De Lacey's (before they attacked him).

Before the point of no return, the monster sees one last fleeting chance for humanity to redeem itself in his eyes, when he comes across "a beautiful child," who the monster hopes "was unprejudiced, and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity" (Shelley 318). However, this is not the case, because the child is Victor's brother, and thus he responds by calling the monster names and threatening him. Even then, however, this serves to proves the monster's central argument, which is the claim that nurture, far more than nature, dictates a person's personality and behavior. That this stands in stark contrast to the view professed by Victor makes sense, because the dominance of nurture over nature means that all of the death caused by the monster is ultimately a direct result of Victor, not because his creation of the monster resulted in the creation of an inherently violent, malformed individual, but rather because he chose to abandon the monster immediately after his creation, thus depriving him of the kind of nurturing environment which could have ensured that the monster would grow and learn without having to suffer in the way that he ultimately does. Thus, Victor attempts to subtly avoid recognizing "the importance of nurture over nature in the creation of human monsters" (Mellor 484). In much the same way that religion serves to diminish individual responsibility by suggesting that there are forces dictating human behavior beyond the objectively knowable world, so too does Victor's insistence on the existence of "human nature" serve to shield him from the guilt he would otherwise carry. Finally, it is worth briefly mentioning that even if there were some inherent quality to human beings that existed prior to experience and influenced their personality and behavior, then the monster's experiences would seem to suggest that this human nature is inherently violent, cruel, and petty, rather than representing the kind of pure ideal suggested by Victor.