2.4 – Writing Portfolio Essay

John Locke – The blank slate

The 18th and 19th century was a period of time where people began to question the existence of a greater being know as god, people believed in the church and the ideas that everything was the result of a plan of a supernatural being. once people began to doubt such ideas, theories by philosophers began to be accepted. A key philosopher was John Locke, who proposed a theory called “The Blank Slate Theory” he explains this theory in his book “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” through this theory we can understand Mary Shelley’s ideas around the Creature in the novel “Frankenstein” and what this teaches the reader about human behavior. 

Mary Shelley was a unique writer during the 18th and 19th centuries, She had a very unique style of writing. Shelley wrote her novels based around the genre gothic fiction, this genre is meant to reveal ideas about human nature. This is done by putting facts and and real scientific theories into the writers work of science fiction, this blend of fact and fiction causes the reader to learn about real scientific theories and experiments without the reader realising that they have. This need for theories and experiments in the genre gothic fiction put a lot of pressure on writers. While Mary Shelley was an active writer, John Locke’s Theory was a highly debated topic at the time. John Locke’s theory of being born a blank slate proposes that experiences are what shapes people’s personality and behaviour.Locke’s reasoning for this comes back to a central idea nobody knows anything about things that they have not experienced either first or second hand either your own experience or hearing/reading about someone else’s experience. Locke also believes that complex ideas are based on multiple simple ones. With an understanding of John Locke’s theory, in particular that we are born with no knowledge and that for us to develop complex ideas and understanding we must first have a foundation in multiple simple ideas, we gain a new level of understanding about her 1818 book, ‘Frankenstein’ and the lessons that Shelly is trying to teach the reader. 

Once we understand this theory we gain a large amount of insight into ‘Frankenstein’ Shelley displays an example of Locke’s theory that we are born a blank slate is when the creature becomes conscious in victor’s lab, “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me… it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.” The creature describes his first experience of being conscious is a multiplicity of sensations, but shortly begins to distinguish the world around him he begins to be able to distinguish the different sensations that made up the multiplicity of sensations that he first experienced when he first woke up. 

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience”. John Locke’s states that knowledge must be gained and not given by a god or our creator. With this in mind the creature is portrayed in the exact way Locke has explained his theory, once the  creature wakes up he can differentiate between his senses but once he gains experience by using those senses he begins to understand each sense individually. Shelly further displays aspects of Locke’s theory that no knowledge is given by the creator because Victor Frankenstien doesn’t care or give any knowledge to the creator once he has awoken. Having the information from John Locke’s theory we can see and understand why Shelley invested so much into the development of the creature’s character, this is because Shelley wants the reader to understand that we control our own fate, we are the masters and there is no plan of god. Shelley is trying to show us that our lives and choices are under our own control, everyone is in control of their own life.

Shelley is trying to teach the reader that complex ideas are not given to us during the process of birth, we are given simple ones for us to build up from. Shelley gives us insight into this when the creature discovers a fire in the forest, even though he has never seen a fire before he develops complex ideas about the fire by interacting with it. Through these interactions he learns how to keep the fire alight during the night, “The wet wood which I had placed near the heat dried and itself became inflamed. I reflected on this, and by touching the various branches, I discovered the cause…When night came… I covered it carefully with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches upon it…,” he also learns that it will cause him a great deal of pain to put his body in the fire “In my joy, I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain…,” he also learns how to quickly revive the fire once it dies out. when I awoke, and my first care was to visit the fire. I uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly fanned it into a flame. I observed this also and contrived a fan of branches, which roused the embers when they were nearly extinguished…”. Once we begin to understand how the creature learned from his experiences we can see why Shelley spent so much time in the book showing the creature developing his basic understanding of the world, she did this instead of having Victor and the creature having a deep and complex conversation. we can understand that Shelley was trying to show the reader that people aren’t born having knowledge and skills and that it takes a long time and lots of hard work for these to develop in a person. Because we were shown that the creature was born with no knowledge but was able to put in hard work to gain his knowledge and then have deep and complex conversations with his creator Victor, Shelley is ultimately trying to show the reader that we can do anything that we want to achieve, but it takes a lot of hard work and time to learn those skills and to gain the knowledge and things like these don’t happen overnight. She is trying to portray to the reader that we can choose and decide what we learn and how successful we are in our life and that nothing is decided by a god.

Ultimately Shelley through the creature is giving the reader insight to the fact that your life isn’t decided by a greater being and your actions, decisions, choices, and skills are learnt and gained through your hard work and experiences.