Frankenstein's Monster's Blank Slate

In Frankenstein, the monster begins his tale by recounting to Dr. Frankenstein the “original era of [his] being.” He starts out his life in solitude and in a state of disorientation: “No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused.” The monster’s experience is strikingly representative of John Locke’s theory of mind as a blank slate. At first, he can barely discern a leaf from a bird, but his senses gradually become adjusted to his environment. He eventually becomes able to distinguish the different sights and sounds of his surroundings from each other. He says, “I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me…”

The monster makes his way through the woods, encountering new objects. He discovers foods to eat, streams to drink from, and eventually he stumbles across an abandoned fire, which he attempts to maintain and resurrect. Through his experience and practical application of the these things, he is gathering more and more knowledge. Not all his experience is positive, however, as he comes across humans who are so frightened of his appearance that they chase him away. Despaired by his complete and utter dejection, the monster says that he “wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.” The detestation and rejection he has experienced is beginning to form his personality; he becomes an enraged and hateful being.

John Locke: Tabula Rasa

John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was his argument against earlier philosophers‘, such as Rene Decartes, rationalist theory of knowledge, which proposed that ideas are innate in us and that we discover the knowledge through reasoning and deduction. Locke was a proponent of empiricism, which is the theory that the mind starts off as a blank slate - except for having certain mental processes - and that we gain knowledge through our experience of the world around us.

The idea of the blank slate, or tabula rasa, dates all the way back to Aristotle. This view states that the mind is formed with certain mental capacities, but is overall devoid of ideas or knowledge. This contrasted with the rationalist view that ideas are innate and put into our minds by a higher power. According to Locke, our sensory perception is responsible for our experience of facts and evidence in the world, which we then interpret into knowledge. He went on to suggest that, not only does the blank slate leave the individual free to acquire knowledge, it also leaves him free to form his personality, his identity.

Source: NIU/NWE

Enlightenment thinker John Locke

John Locke was one of the most important Enlightenment thinkers of the 17^th century. A proponent of reason as man’s most important tool, his writings on human knowledge, social interaction, property rights, the self, and religious toleration helped pave the way for the decline of absolutism and the rise of classical liberalism and republicanism.
One of Locke’s most influential work was his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he attempted to discover how we acquire knowledge. Published in 1690, Essay communicated his belief that humans have a “God-given obligation to obtain knowledge and not always to acquire our beliefs by accepting the word of authorities or common superstition.” Locke also believed that human beings were born without any innate knowledge; with what he referred to as a blank slate, or tabula rasa. He determined that we gather knowledge through our experience and interpretation of facts.

(Source: IEP)