
On Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
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Shelley's Legacy From Enlightenment Philosophers
There is a sense it's the creature, the brain, it didn't have any previous life. It is a blank slate that has its own new personality based on its experience in the world. The monster learns to speak by listening in on the Delacie family. For over a year he secretly lives in an abandoned structure that's connected to their cottage. Without them knowing, he listens in on their everyday conversations. This becomes his education. And he insists that his education would have disposed him to virtue,. had his experience not shown him that he was not going to be allowed to join the society that he was learning about at second hand. I think that's really important.
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