ShmoopTube

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We speak student!

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Frankenstein a la Shmoop

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Nature versus Nurture

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What is the nature versus nurture debate?

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So nature versus nature --

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You know, you've probably heard this being talked about

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in contemporary society.

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The question is - Are we born as a blank slate

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and anything that we are as humans

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comes from nurture, meaning comes from

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the environment we're brought up in,

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the way we're treated, et cetera?

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Or are we born with certain innate qualities?

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You know, I might be born as kind of a bubbly kid.

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Or am I born blank slate

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and because my mom is bubbly,

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so am I? That's kind of the question.

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Nature versus nurture is used a lot

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in super controversial topics

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like homosexuality, where there are people who argue

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that people are not born as homosexuals,

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- but instead it is, you know, nurture and it's learned. Exactly. - Learned.

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So that's the nature versus nurture.

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How is the nature versus nurture debate brought up in Frankenstein?

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Is the monster innately bad...

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or is he bad because his creator abandoned him?

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Those are the two options.

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Either he was just born a monster,

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or created a monster,

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or he was totally a blank slate,

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could've turned out to be the sweet guy next door,

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but then Victor abandoned him

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and so he became evil and started killing everyone.

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The Enlightenment is when this theory of the blank slate -

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the fancy term for that is "tabula rasa" -

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came about with John Locke.

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And the idea would be that yes,

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Frankenstein's monster could have turned into

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a normal guy and could've led a totally fine life.

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But he was abandoned by his creator

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and so the nurture made him not be that way.

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Today you look at a toddler, you look at a kid --

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We now know that tabula rasa's not a thing.

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It's definitely not -- No one's born a blank slate.

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But we still don't know how much.

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And the modern parlance is that there's a genetic predisposition

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to doing something some way.

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Exactly. You know, we know that nobody's born blank slate.

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We also know that, you know,

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nurture is an issue and nature --

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But we still haven't figured out how much.

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And this is something that Mary Shelley was thinking about

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and John Locke in the Enlightenment was thinking about

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like hundreds of years ago and we still haven't figured it out.

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What is the nature versus nurture debate?

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How is the nature versus nurture conflict

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presented in Frankenstein?

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[ baby laughs and cries ]

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