John Locke's Influence On Frankenstein By Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was influenced by many of the philosophers that came before her, specifically John Locke. Frankenstein was published in 1818 in the middle of the Romantics' hold in England. The novel was originally made to be a ghost story to entertain Mary Shelley and her companions during the 1816 summer. John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding had a lot of influence over the young writer and her book, but there were also some ideas that they disagreed about. So while Mary Shelley uses John Locke as an influence, she also draws ideas from some other theories.

Similarities

One of his most influential theories of Locke that Shelley draws from is his theory of children being a blank slate. With the creature, there seems

In Frankenstein a lot happens in and around nature, for example, at the beginning of the book, there is a moment when a young Victor watched a tree get struck by lightning, which made him wonder why nature, the lighting, would destroy such a beautiful part of itself. This is the moment that got him interested in natural philosophy, which led to the rest of the book. A little bit later while Victor is making the Creature, there is a huge lightning storm surrounding the cabin that he is working in, showing the significance of nature to the story because of the powerful storm that was created by god. The significance of god is that why was there such a powerful storm against this creature being created unless it would be going against the laws of nature? Next, when the creature ran away to live in the forest, he found a family who he watched and learned surrounded by the forest. He lived in the woods, stealing off of the humans, watching them, and learning how to speak, interact with others, and about the family's life. There he learns about how they fell out of favor in the French court, and how he thought that the other humans were extremely cruel. By being in nature, the forest hides him from the view of possibly being hurt by the human, while also allowing him to learn from watching. So while nature might have warned against him being created since he is a living creature God will protect him from harm. Then finally after he found out that the creature had killed his brother, William, and not Justine who was executed because Victor refused to speak up about who the actual killer was, Victor felt a lot of guilt over knowing the true killer's identity and the people who were hurt because of it. Eventually, his family sent him out to nature with his friend and there was an incline in Victor's mental and