About Human Nature

Human nature is the way a human thinks, acts, and feels. Human nature is hard to define. Sometimes it is just, but sometimes it is not. The reason why human nature is often used in literature is that human nature is interesting, and authors can make a good story out of human nature. For example, the stories “The Elephant Man” and “The Monkey’s Paw” are based on human nature. “The Elephant Man” talks about how a shopkeeper kept an ugly man in his store, where the man suffered, but a nice doctor came along and helped him. The latter story talks about how a cursed monkey’s paw destroyed a family. Human nature creates consequences, morality, and choices in literature.

Positive aspects of human nature encourage us to act with kindness, care, and virtue. There are many kinds of good human nature, such as kindness, respect, and redemptivity. In both stories mentioned above, some characters possessed positive aspects of human nature. For example, Dr. Treves was kind and helped Merrick; he also respected Merrick and didn’t laugh at him like most people. Mr. White also realized his flaw in the second wish and used the third one to correct it. Good people are liked by many and are often successful in making relationships, which can help them through many troubles. Therefore, positive aspects of human nature can help make a better world for ourselves and others.

Darker aspects of human nature let people make fatal mistakes. Greed, curiosity, hatred toward ugliness, and selfishness are some kinds of human nature. Greed and selfishness drive us to be unable to acknowledge others’ feelings or needs, and curiosity makes us ignore dangers. In the stories “The Elephant Man” and “The Monkey’s Paw”, Morris was greedy and selfish and urged the White family to purchase the monkey’s paw; he wanted to be free of the monkey’s paw and to let others taste the curse of the paw. Ross was also greedy, and he used the customers’ curiosity and hatred toward ugliness to make a profit off Merrick while he suffered. So, the dark aspects of human nature can lead people to make harmful or irreversible errors.

The reasons for having the darker aspects of human nature are numerous and mainly based on bad habits. Dark aspects of human nature, like greediness, stem from bad habits or personalities. For example, greediness comes from laziness and ambition. Even though ambition is good, laziness makes it just wanting what you need, but not putting effort into accomplishing that goal. In “The Elephant Man”, the customers’ hatred toward ugliness started from how humans tend to judge others by appearance. And in “The Monkey’s Paw”, the White family was curious because they saw that the monkey’s paw was interesting and wanted to know more about it. Therefore, human nature is formed by a variety of personalities and tendencies.

In conclusion, human nature is very complex and is deeply embedded in literature, and it forms interesting characters, conflicts, and morals. The stories “The Elephant Man and “The Monkey’s Paw” had elements related to human nature. For example, in the story “The Monkey’s Paw”, Morris is greedy and harms the White family. Through reading these stories, we can find out that the positive aspects of human nature can help people, while the dark aspects of human nature do the opposite. We can also learn that their causes vary; for example, selfishness and greed are caused by laziness and ambition. Ultimately, human nature offers valuable lessons about human behavior and morality in storytelling.