I know that in class on Wednesday, we discussed this issue a lot and we came to the conclusion that the answer to the question of whether Tom and Chambers would have ended up the same way had they not been switched was a personal one based on ones belief of either nature or nurture. I, however, would like to give my two cents to the argument as well. I strongly believe that there is no way that the two children would have grown up the same had they not been switched. I do agree with Holly that "fake Tom" could be just a malicious person, but I think the degree to which he expresses that have been different had be been raised a slave. If he had been raised as a slave, we he cried and threw things on the floor as a child he would have been punished, therefore changing his character from a young age. When his actions as a small child were not punished in any way and he was allowed to get away with them he learned that this was acceptable behavior and thus reinforcing his bad habits.On the other hand, maybe Chambers was just a good person at heart. However, if he had been raised as Roxy and "fake Tom's" master there can be no doubt that he would have treated them differently. Maybe he wouldn't have been as arrogant as "fake Tom", but there is no doubt that an individual treats their master different from the way the treat their mother.
So overall I think nurture has a lot to do with the development of ones character. I know that it is a personal decision and I don't expect everybody to agree with me, but if they did it wouldn't make for very good discussion, would it?
I agree. Mark Twain really emphasizes the conflict of nature versus nurture in Roxana's twins. It is noted that "'Tom' was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation"(52). I think innately "fake tom" was bad just as the quote says, but "fake tom" was only able to continue to be bad because Roxana treated "fake tom" too well. Roxana treated "fake tom" both as how the slave should treat a master's child and she also treated him especially well because he's her real child. Thus, this excessive doting allowed tom to grow into what he is currently in the novel. If "fake tom" had been treated like a slave then surely he wouldn't be as arrogant. Still, I don't think this is the most important insight. By continually practicing to treat her child as the master's child, Roxana conditioned herself into accepting that "fake tom" was "no longer a usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized master. He was her darling, her master, and her deity all in one, and in her worship of him she forgot who she was and what he had been"(56). I think this is the most important passage regarding nurture or conditioning to be more exact. I think this ties in with how quickly "fake tom" was able to return to his former arrogant self after hearing that he was black because the towns people still treated him as white and he continued to respond as a white person.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the concept of nature vs. nurture is strengthened through the ongoings of the novel. I think it was one of Mark Twain's main goals to promote his belief that both nature and nurture have an effect on a person's upbringing, but nurture is probably more influential than anything else. In psychology, a lot of research goes into how much influence genetics (nature) has on a person's moral character. Although there is definitely some power in that, it tends to only appear when an outside trigger is involved (nurture). Although the twins in this novel were switched, studies that take adopted twins and observe them for mental similarities have found the exact same results.
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