Nature vs Nurture

Do you every sit around comparing yourself to you siblings or even your closest friends, wondering why we are so different or so alike. Wondering how this happens and what causes you to act differently to others in some situations. The nature vs nurture debate is one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology. How much of humans behaviours, ideas, and feelings are innate, and how much is through experience? People have been asking questions for years wondering if aspects of behaviour are either inherited or obtained.  

Nature supports the idea that our traits are influenced by genes and biological factors, these impact on not only our physical appearance but some of our personality characteristics. Nature is whats passed down in your family, the genes that your parents give you so thats why some things you do or like are because thats what your parents do or like. 

Whereas nurture is the opinion that environment and surroundings that people grow up with determine our traits. Nurture can be effected by the environment we grow up in, our early childhood experiences, how we were raised and our social relationships. 

“No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience” said by British philosopher John Locke who wrote the essay concerning human understanding in 1689. He emphasised the role of experience as fully contributing to behavioural development of a person. Locke set out that the human mind at birth is a blank slate in which experience then imprints knowledge, therefore stating that nurture is what makes us different to others and no ideas or knowledge come from our nature.

“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To the I answer in one word, EXPERIENCE.” this is one of Lockes most famous quotes said in his essay concerning human understanding. 

But some philosophers like Plato and Renne Descartes state that some things are stuck with you because of your nature, that they occur naturally regardless of environmental influences. Nativists say that all or most behaviours and characteristics are the result of inheritance.

God is not included in the debate between nature and nurture because both sides of the debate hold a position contrary to God. God did not create us to be bad, nor did God provide an environment for us to sin, but some people still behave in ways different from the norm. The bible states that both sides play a major role to how we turn out and who we become.

I believe this debate weighs slightly heavier on the nurture side because various psychologist have analysed the study of identical twins. It shows that individuals with the same genes can have very different personalities. If the twins grow up in separate environments they will turn out to be totally different individuals even though they are the same on the inside. I think that humans are effected by nurture more as we are very emotional beings and how we are treated effects how we take on life. 

An example of this is the study of Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, who are two identical twins that were separated at birth. Elyse said that when she felt lonely she thought she was missing a twin. Both girls had always know that they were adopted but it was not until Elyse tried to find her birth mother she found out that she had a twin sister and the had been separated for a study on nature vs nurture. After they got to know each other they released they had a lot in common due to their nature, watching them they have similar mannerisms, they had both been editors for there school newspaper and both attended film school. From this study I have found that our characteristics, traits, likes and dislikes are mostly determined on genetics. The sisters weren’t nurtured to like the things they liked, it was in their DNA.

In the novel Frankenstein we are shown how both sides of the debate influenced the creature. We are told that he is made up of various body parts and this means that he has a lot of ‘nature’ to run by, but the reason he turns out the way he does, is not because of his nature but by his nurture. The creature is left to fend on his own after being rejected by society as well as his creator because of his differences. The pain felt by the creature leads him to turn on society because hate is all that he knows due to the way he was treated.

The debate compares if it is our environment that is the cause of a certain behaviour or were we just born this way? So even though there is no solid conclusion to the age long nature vs nurture debate, the information from philosophers, the bible and the twin study, I think that nature and nurture both play a role in the way we turn out, how we behave in certain situations and why we are different to others.

“Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence that affects him after his birth.”

The Raven is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, it tells the story of a mysterious visit of a talking raven to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow fall into madness. Gothic tones and moods are very well established in the book along with features that almost every gothic protagonist hold. The narrators past comes back to haunt him along with presence of the supernatural. 

The man is grieving from the loss of his love Lenore, sitting alone ‘weak and weary’ on a dark cold December night. Sitting alone in his house trying to read, he is quite tired, and as he is just about to fall asleep he hears a quite knock on his chamber door. He choses not to answer the door, “Tis the wind and nothing more.” he states. After the second tap at the door he says that terror filled him like never before and he repeats to himself that there is no one there, trying to convince himself not to be frightened. The man is trying to ignore what he is hearing, but as curiosity and fear overwhelm him he eventually opens up the door speaking ‘Lenore?’ into the darkness. From this part of the short story told, I am convinced that the man is frightened about whats out there because of his past events, the passing of Lenore. Most common gothic protagonists are usually effected by there past in some way.

Then he hears a tapping at the window, when I read this my heart rate jumps up slightly. We know that there was nothing at the door so readers become on edge wondering who it could be. Once opening the window a raven files into he room, perching on the pallas above the chamber door. When the narrator asks the bird questions he answers with one word only ‘Nevermore’, the man tries to understand what the bird means by this but comes to no conclusion. He then mutters to him self “Other friends have flown before. On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.” To then the bird then answers ‘Nevermore’. Whenever the man asks the bird a question he only answers with one word, the raven seems to distress the protagonist with its constant repetition of the word “Nevermore”. The man continuously asks the raven questions even though he knows what the answer is going to be, this just winds the man up making him very irritated. If he just left the bird alone in the beginning he may have flown out on his own which would have saved a lot of hassle for the man. 

Then the narrator states that the air has become dense and perfumed, reminding him of Lenore. Saying that the god had sent down angels to maybe relieve his sorrow, but the bird answers again with nevermore.
This part in the story shows a small presence of the supernatural as the man is drawn to linking the air to the the gods and heaven. Most gothic texts have a presence of the supernatural shown which makes the reader a bit scared and on edge as we cannot relate to the situations. The narrator goes on to say “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Saying this makes me feel mixed emotions about the man as he is going of at the raven, he seems to be very upset about the whole situation just showing me that he is become crazy.

The narrator finally gives up speaking with the bird after his hopes of seeing Lenore again are crushed, he says that the bird remains perched above his chamber door and he will forever live in his shadow. At the beginning of the book we are told the man is falling asleep before the knock on the door which makes it unclear if the narrator is dreaming though out the text. If he was dreaming all of the things about the raven and his lost love it would make more scene to the reader because we cannot relate to the story due to the madness of the man and the talking raven.

This novel displays a few common gothic features, the protagonist is effected very dramatically by past events in his life and the presence of the supernatural shown though out the novel. right from the start when I am told that it is a cold dark. night and the man is alone reading a book on ‘forgotten lore’ and there is a sudden knock at the door, a dark spooky gothic mood is created. Were also notice that thought the text the same event come back to haunt him, the raven driving him deeper into insanity. The grieving of the death of Lenore and the dying fire establish a mood concerned with death and memories.

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness”

Tim Burtons 2010 film ‘Alice in Wonderland’ adds common gothic elements to the original story ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ to create a darker story line. Tim uses make up as to create the gothic characters, the film also uses gothic music to create tones and moods. We are also shown how Alice follows her emotions instead of what is right.

19-year-old Alice is first seen attending a garden party where she is confronted by an unwanted marriage proposal, she does not know what to do so she just takes a minute away, following the strange rabbit she has been dreaming about and seeing all day. After following the rabbit for some time she accidentally falls into a large rabbit hole under a tree. Alice finds herself not in the bright Wonderland of her dreams, but in the twisted, barren world known as Underland. She emerges in a forest where she is greeted by a group of strange animals and cartoon like characters that can speak. They argue over whether Alice is “the right Alice” who must slay the Red Queen’s Jabberwocky and give back the White Queen’s power.

The Mad Hatter helps Alice avoid being captured by the Red Queen by allowing himself to be taken instead. Alice is then found by the Bloodhound, but Alice wants to help the Mad Hatter. The Red Queen is unaware of Alice’s true identity so invites her in as a guest where Alice learns that the only weapon that can kill the Jabberwocky is locked inside the den of the Bandersnatch. Alice gets the sword and makes friends with the Bandersnatch by returning its eye. She then escapes with the Bandersnatch and takes the sword to the White Queen. The Cheshire Cat saves the Mad Hatter from the Red Queen. On the day that Alice takes on the jabberwocky, the White Queen and the Red Queen gather their armies on a chessboard-like battlefield and send Alice and the Jabberwocky to fight. At the end the White Queen gives Alice some of the Jabberwocky’s purple blood which will bring her whatever she wishes. She decides to rejoin the everyday world where she impresses Lord Ascot with her idea of establishing oceanic trade routes to Hong Kong, where she goes with him as an apprentice.

From the beginning of the story we notice that Alice has a much more pale face compared to everyone else, indicating to me that her soul is slowing dying in the world that she is currently in and she needs to escape. She has a gothic and ghostly pale to her face, including sunken eyes backing up again that she is not happy there.

Common gothic music is used in some of the scenes to add tension and uncertainty, creating a gothic atmosphere in the film. When the Mad Hatter is telling Alice about his past the music goes from happy piano music to deep, dark organ music which makes our heart rates increase and we become on edge, as if we are watching a horror movie. Organ music is also used when Alice first meets the Red Queen to create a spooky and unsettling vibe for the audience, indicating that the Red Queen is bad and will only cause trouble in the story. When Alice is fighting the Jabberwocky there is also dark, fast music playing increasing our adenine as Alice could at any minute be killed. 

In this movie we are shown how independent Alice is and how she follows her own emotions instead of what she maybe should be doing, there are many examples of this shown in the film. Alice does not want to marry into her ready planed out future, instead whats to do her own thing. No-one cares about her “sightings of the supernatural”, as many times at the beginning of the film she was trying to tell her friends and family that she has been having strange dreams and been sighting a white rabbit in a waistcoat. Alice becomes obsessed with what she is seeing and what is going on in her head, she dose not even want to be involved in her proposal that everyone is there to see, but runs away to see where the rabbit is gone. She makes herself look crazy as no one else can see what she is.
At the beginning Alice thinks its a dream, when watching this I think that maybe it is a dream as it is so unreal to imagine and maybe its all happening in her head.

Burton creates a the desolate and depressing world of Underland, highlighting only the negative undertones of the original stories. Bit this makes it an outstanding gothic film compared to your usual gothic films. It may not be as spooky and scary as other gothic films out there but it holds gothic elements and when you pay attention to whats happening in the film you understand how it relates to theres. I really enjoy this movie and highly recommend it, it goes to show how many strange things go on in our heads.