Frankenstein Nature Vs Nurture

The philosophical question of whether people’s character is developed through nature or nurture has been a challenge throughout time. Nature refers to how a person is on a biological level, while nurture is affected by a person’s surroundings, and how they are raised. There are scientific studies that have proven both sides of the argument in their respective areas. As Steinberg describes in his Article Determining Nature vs. Nurture, “Michael J. Meaney, a psychiatry professor at McGill University, has found that when a rat pup receives less licking and grooming from its mother it is more fearful and more reactive to Stressors as it matures” (Steinberg). In literature, authors have also attempted to answer the question of nature vs. nurture

Victor observes that he has always been different from those around him from an early age, “I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge" (Shelly 18). Victor did not listen to anyone and forged his own path in life to be the way he desired. As seen, Victor’s father warned him to stop studying alchemy but Victor continued reading anyways ignoring his father’s wisdom. Additionally, later in life while Victor studied at college and created his monster he thrived off solitude and did not write back to his family frequently. This is very out of character for his family, and Elizabeth and his father often write pleading for him to visit and respond to his letters, “‘Get well—and return to us…Your father’s health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you,’” (Shelly 53). Based on those statements Victor was not nurtured to be this way, but his actions are a result of his

The monster was never human to begin with so he would not be able to conform to the ways humans traditionally do, which refers to nature. Victor abandons his monster right after its creation, which directs how the monster’s character would shape through him yearning to be human, which touches on the idea of nurture. The monster’s overall view of himself was drastically changed by his environment and how society treated him. Human beauty standards were unbeknownst to him before he met Victor, and other humans; after their treatment he internalized that he was indeed a monster, “I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was” (Shelley 82). In Yousef and Richardson’s analysis of Frankenstein they explain that, “...the Creature's non-existent childhood [is] a key indicator of Shelley's belief in the importance of infancy and childhood as a required period of dependence in all our lives. In as much as the Creature has no childhood, argues Yousef, then he is not human” (Strangers and Orphans: Knowledge and mutuality in Mary Shelley’s