Nurture In Frankenstein

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Mankind has set a precedent for themselves through their interactions with one another throughout Society, but is this conventional image set a virtuous or unwelcome notion towards mankind and Society? “Nature gave me a body shape and eye color and hair color and skin color and gender and the rest was up to my society to nurture.” --anonymous. In Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, she argues that Society sets a standard of the normal and detests the deviation from such natural norm, but they refuse to see past the natural to nurture anyone into an individual of non-aesthetic worth in society. From Victor Frankenstein’s perspective of his creature, he deems it a “monster” without fully taking in the characteristics and educational worth …show more content…
Both nature and nurture oppose each other in terms of society because of society’s focus on the pursuit to flawlessness. Society looks for an individual to naturally possess desirable physical qualities, so in the Creature’s case, he questions, “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” (Shelley 115). Victor made him, so why could he not be loved by the creator who had put him into motion and given him the exact body type that would make him beloved by all? The Creature at first has no previous admonitions as to his disturbing physical features, but once he “accepted the "perfect forms of [his] cottagers" (109) as normative,” he is repulsed by his own features, similarly to the human society (McWhir). As the DeLacey family portrays ultimately kind moral values towards each other, even they cannot overlook the Creature’s outward appearance that terrifies them, but this opposes their and society’s original morals. In a society surrounded by the belief that beauty equals power or worth, it is no wonder even the DeLaceys fall prey this, as seen through Felix encountering Safie “ravished with delight when he saw her” (Shelley 102). This is contingent on Felix looking upon her beautiful face, forcing “every trait of sorrow [to] vanish...and as that moment I thought him as beautiful as the stranger” …show more content…
The Creature may have been created from nature as an “ugly” “monster,” but he was nurtured through his readings and observations into the individual smarter than his creator, benevolent in character, and a well-deserving of society’s welcome. Victor soon realized what the rest of society never gave the Creature to explain to them: that “there was some justification in his argument” (Selley 134). The creature proves himself as a “creature of fine sensations,” which gives him worth for a brief moment in time. Beauty is not an individual’s total worth, and there is more to an person than their apparent features. The Creature learns everything from mankind: From their actions, from their books, from their morals. The Creature believes the best from society with positive “thoughts...filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness” (Shelley 204). This is both naive yet imperative to the theme of expectation versus reality because the Creature gives humans every opportunity to prove themselves beginning in an innocent state, but mankind does not give the Creature the same benefit. Bohls gives an excellent derision from society towards the Creature when she says, “The comfort and attractiveness of their way of life...is inseparable from...the violence their civilization does to those
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