Christie #3

A persistent theme in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the idea of nature vs. nurture and the importance of upbringing on human character development. In the novel, Shelley doesn't seem to place much importance on our inherent nature but rather the path we take and the degree to which we are corrupted by knowledge. That being said, the story implies that human nature is inherently neither good nor evil, that in fact we are defined by nurture rather than nature and that the nurture of human society can germinate and grow evil from innocence.
To answer the question of inherent human goodness or evil is to give a gross oversimplification in regard to a novel as rife with character development as Frankenstein. If anything, the book is a discussion of the ways in which we transform and react to our surroundings and desires. Frankenstein, driven by an insatiable intellectual curiosity, shifts fluidly throughout the story from 'good' to 'evil' and various states in between. As the monster observes the world and tries to develop his identity and place of belonging, he muses "Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike" (80). Shelley seems to express her own perception of human nature as fluid and powerful, capable of doing both immense wrong and right, through the monster's innocence and subsequent loss thereof.
Shelley's expressed views are mirrored by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in his "Oration on the Dignity of Man," (1486), often known as the Manifesto of the Renaissance. A famous quote from the oration, translated into English, reads "All other things have a limited and fixed nature prescribed and bounded by our laws. You [man], with no limit or no bound, may choose for yourself the limits and bounds of your nature." Although unlike Shelley, Mirandola, as a Renaissance thinker, endorses and advocates for the acquisition of knowledge, he seems to share her beliefs on the mutability and flexibility of human character.
I agree with Shelley and Mirandola; I don't believe humans are inherently good nor evil. We are like our embryonic stem cells, capable of becoming anything and everything, and as we grow the cells begin to specialize and differentiate in response environmental stimuli. Our experiences (nurture) 'differentiate' aspects of our characters into certain personality traits, and how we choose to express these traits is reflected only in our actions, which don't necessarily reflect a person's true character. Therefore, while actions can be firmly good and evil, character is not, and human nature is a vague term defined by the society and experiences of an individual or groups of humans, not something programmed in our genes or biological natures.