Frankenstein Feral Children

The Exploration of Wild and Feral Children

In the novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley uses the idea of wild and feral children to explore the beginning of Frankenstein’s young life. Some may compare Frankenstein to a wild or feral child because Frankenstein was not socially accepted and did not adhere to social norms. Wild children are children who have been separated from their families for a long period of time and raised in the wild by animals. These children adapt traits similar to the animals they were raised by. Feral children are children who have been held in captivity from the outside world by their parents or other captors in places such as a basement or a small room for a long period of time; this treatment causes mental and

In every case of a wild child, the response is to attempt to transform the child through a series of types of treatments and actions: tame, humanize, civilize, normalize, educate, cure, or rehabilitate (Benzaquen, p 143). Caretakers tried to tame and humanize wild and feral children by training them to be less afraid of people, to not view peers and adults as dangerous, and to become more humane themselves. They then tried to civilize and normalize the children by trying to advance their social, cultural, and moral development, as well as helping to provide them a stable environment and daily routine. Finally, those who worked with wild children tried to educate, cure, and rehabilitate them by giving them more intellectual and social instruction, as well as addressing their physical needs with medical

Wild children are dramatically different than normal children in regard to being socially underdeveloped, adopting physical traits of animals that raised them, suffering delayed cognitive development, and then having to endure rigorous treatment processes to reintegrate into mainstream society. Two types of wild children exist: children who are lost and live in the wild on their own or with animals or children who are held captive in a small cell or room as abuse by parents or guardians (Lasky 1). Throughout this paper I explore the significant differences between a wild child and a normal child through social, physical, and mental aspects. Beginning with the physical aspects, children who are raised by and live with animals for an extended period of time tend to adapt the same physical traits the animal has in terms of behavior and demeanor. Compared to normal children’s developed language and speech, wild children’s language development is halted when they enter the wild and it maybe never returns. For example, past documented children have been shown to run on all fours, forage and hunt for food, have exceptional hearing, or be lacking language skills. These children preferred the same things their influences did such as what they eat and where they sleep. Following the physical