Nature v. Nurture in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins

Nature versus Nurture is a common topic when discussing one’s personal development while growing up. Children are often affected by how their families treat them and teach them their values and judgements. This sometimes changes the children’s personalities and manners. Because of that the way they’re brought up can also often impact the choices they make in their future lives. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how children are influenced by their families using the Finch and the Ewell families. Personally, my family has also greatly impacted my life and personality growing up.

One of the oldest debates in the history of Psychology is about Nature versus Nurture. Today, we know that both play a significant role in human’s life. Some people believe that it is genes which affects our way of life and some people believes that it is none other but our environment that greatly influences our lifestyle and some believe that both has tremendous impact on one’s way of life. Indeed in certain cases both our nature (our genes) and our environment roughly play an equal role in human life.

In one of Wilson’s calendar quotes in “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” by Mark Twain, Twain foreshadows one of major themes throughout the novel. Wilson writes, “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education” (31). This quote falls into the common debate of nature versus nurture. This topic has been one of the most fascinating cultural and scientific issues for most of the twentieth century, in determining the behavior of human beings.

The nature vs nurture issue has been a controversial argument among psychologist for decades. This argument exposes two different views. One of them emphasizes that our personality depends solely on genetics (nature). On the other hand, the second view suggests that humans “develop through experience” (Myers 2013, SG 6) (nurture).

One of the longest running discussions in psychology is the nature vs nurture debate. That is, is human behavior influenced more by environmental factors in one’s life, such as parents, or by genetics and biological factors? In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is described as an outstanding role model for his children, Jem and Scout, teaching them morals, discipline, and important lessons such as the acceptance of those who are different. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne describes Hester Prynne as a strong and independent woman who, despite the circumstances, is a role model for her daughter, Pearl. In spite of having a drunkard for a father, Huck Finn, from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is

Mark Twain uses themes in his novel Pudd’nhead Wilson in attempts to express his ideologies and beliefs about the treatment of slaves based on his personal experiences. Twain writes mainly about nature versus nurture and the effects of slavery in Pudd’nhead Wilson, allowing him to educate his readers and state his opinions in the context of a story that can be relatable or entertaining. Nature versus nurture describes how two identical people from birth can become completely unalike based on the environments and conditions they are raised under. In Pudd’nhead Wilson, the two children that Roxy raises, Tom and Chambers, look identical, yet the divergent paths they both follow build them into individual people with opposite lives. On the outside, Tom seems to be a free white man, but when looking closer at his actions, it becomes clear that he isn’t who he appears to be. Tom was originally intended to become a slave due to his African American ancestry. However, after being switched at birth with Chambers, he becomes a white man while Chambers lives a life of slavery. This leads Tom down a road of gambling, debts, and robbery as he uses his appearance as an excuse for his careless actions. To everyone else in the novel, Tom looks to be an unassuming and

Stephanie Bueno Ms.Parascandolo Humanities II 9/1/14 Nature V.S Nurture It’s a question that many people have asked throughout history to get the psychological process of how people obtain certain qualities that make them who they are. The question everyone knows, Nature or Nurture? People grow up to be who they are because of one of these two factors.

In Mark Twain’s The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, a free man and a slave switched at birth lead very differently lives, until the man regarded as the town fool reveals all during a compelling courthouse scene. Society ostracizes its members for a number of reasons, some reasonable and others unjust. In the novel, race and lack of conformity play a role in discrimination. The citizenry of Dawson’s Landing ostracize certain inhabitants for not meeting the standards of the ideal individual.

A person’s nature, or genetics, determines aspects of the psychology of a person before they’ve been born. There are many example of how genetics determine characteristics of a person, regardless of the environment, also known as

In society, not one person is alike. By saying this, many people believe that they strongly take after their parents. Meaning they think Nature is a big part in their life and why they are who they are. The genes in each cell in us humans determine the different traits that we have, more dominantly on the physical connections like eye color, hair color, ear size, height, and other traits. However, it is still not known whether the more abstract attributes like personality, intelligence, sexual orientation, likes and dislikes are gene-coded in our DNA. The nurture theory has experiments showing a child’s behavior with the environment as to adult behavior. In the Nature Vs Nurture debate, everyone has their own thoughts and ideas on each

Our personalities, mannerisms or actions could be influenced by genetics, or surroundings. “One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate, whether a person's development is predisposed in his DNA, or the majority is influenced by this life experience and his environment.” (“Nature vs. Nurture”) “Nature” proposes that these traits are influenced solely by genetics. On the other hand, “nurture” would suggest human behavior is exclusively from our environment. Looking more in depth on Nature vs. Nurture led me to stumble upon moments of clarity.

Genotype, or nature, is the genetic coding of one's DNA. Genetic code can determine things like eye color, hair color, and height. Phenotype, or nurture, is the actual appearance of these traits which may be different than the genotype due to environmental factors. Scientists have disagreed about how much effect genotype has on the phenotype of psychological traits such as intelligence, aggressiveness, happiness, and the appearance of psychological disorders (Rathus, 56).

The Nature vs. Nurture has been a long never ending debate for some time now. Nature vs Nurture has been so profoundly debated, that now it’s unclear whether what makes us who we are and what we do, nature or nurture. For purposes of this essay Nature is going to be defined as characteristics we acquire through our genetic and biological factors, while that Nurture is going to be defined characteristics we acquire through our interactions and influences with the environment. There are endless ways of taking an approach to the Nature vs Nurture conflict, thus the reason that it’s truly unclear if its Nature or Nurture or even both what makes us who and what we are.

Nature combines with nurture to form our personalities. Our genes may predispose us for certain inheritable traits such as diseases like cystic fibrosis or even just irritability, similar to our relatives, but the environment we are raised in has quite a bit to do with how visible certain aspects of our personality become. If a child is always around an environment where there is constant arguing and yelling going on, the child may naturally feel that is the proper thing to do when things do not go as they would like. Likewise, genetics play a role in determining a person's body type, thus you could get your eye color from your mom, and your height from your dad.

Scientists still agree that biology does play a part in human behavior, however. Nature and nurture do not oppose each other in every manner. Today, social scientists hesitate to choose one or the other. As humans, life depends solely on the operating of the body. This is seen especially in children. It is obvious that children share their biological traits, such as hair or eye color, with that of their parents. Heredity also plays a part in their intelligence, how artistic they are, and their overall personality. We all have “potential” inheritances, in which their full development depends on how we are all raised. Both sides