Nature vs. Nurture

I believe that the majority of how a person develops and how they act is a product of nurture. Nature does have some place in it, but not nearly as much.

When Frankenstein created the monster, in a sense it was like someone having his or her own child. He was supposed to be responsible and teach the monster how to function and behave to fit in with the rest of society. The creature was brand new to life so he really didn’t understand how to act or have any preconceived notions of how he should behave. He hadn’t yet been taught how to hate someone or how to become violent to the point of killing innocent people. He was essentially a massive child who needed a caretaker to make sure that he took the right path in life. Obviously, Victor failed quite miserably with this task.

While I do believe that Nurture has more of an affect on how someone turns out, Nature has its own role. People who have parents and grandparents who have suffered from alcoholism are more likely to become alcoholics themselves. Genetics do ingrain certain habits and personality traits within an individual. However, I also think that it’s possible to avoid falling victim to these more dangerous habits that you receive from your relatives.

The monster was not an inherently evil creature. There were moments within the book, such as when he gathered firewood for the cottagers and saved the girl who fell into the river, where he displays the characteristics of a truly good person. But as the story progressed and more bad things happened to him such as being rejected from society and in one case being shot for simply doing a good deed, he became bitter. Nurture took precedence over how the monster viewed the world around him and it turned him into an angry, murderous individual with little control over his emotions and no concept on how to properly deal with things that upset him.