Feral children: nature/nuture - Essay Example

FERAL CHILDREN Feral children refer to such individuals who live and spend large part of their life far from human society in isolation without making any interaction with their fellow human beings. Such an isolated life is mostly an outcome of some accidental separation and lost of the child from his family. Feral children, usually, are found from thick forests where beasts have brought them up and they look imitating the animal which has nurtured them for years. Anthropologists have experienced many stories related to feral children, who captured their attention and brought back to human society, though these children seldom survive in a new set up and environment.

Michael Newton narrates the story of a feral girl who was tamed and educated for many years after her discovery and was turned into a civilized lady for the future year to come. According to him, a savage girl of Champagne aged nine or ten years was found in the Songi village in September 1731, which was named as Memmie Le Blanc. Appeared from the thick woods, she was armed with a club and had emerged in search of water. Though she lived a life of beasts, yet was not thread bare and had covered her body with a scanty dress of rags and skins.

Her hand looked black, rough and very strong, a bit savage like beasts and her thumb had grown larger than normal human limbs. At first, the villagers tried to capture her by force, but she killed a big dog with one single strike and escaped every time. Then the villagers arrested her by playing trickery upon her and was looked after and cared. In the beginning, she used to eat raw meat of animal and her sense to smell the meat was extra-ordinary, which helped her discover the food even at a significant distance.

She was tamed and was admitted to a convent school where she got formal education. As she had not lost since her birth, but had been sold out, as she supposed, at the age of seven or eight, she underwent no serious hurdles while learning and speaking French language at school though it took nearly one decade in acquiring command over the language. She maintained many memories regarding how she was enslaved and was boarded on a ship which was wrecked and she swap to the shore with a Negro girl and landed safely.

Moreover, Memmie recorded how she had fought with her Negro companion girl whom she had rescued from drowning in the deep sea and they separated to lead a completely isolated life subsequently. Being curious, interesting and thought-provoking, Memmies story is a great example of the life of feral children who survived a led a wild and beastly life without their parents and fellow humans. (Quoted in Michael Newton, 2002) Another true story twentieth century reveals the life of two savage girls belongs to two sisters named Kamala and Amala, aged eight and one and half years respectively, who where discovered by A. L. Singh in India in 1920.

Singh had found a she-wolf with her cubs, among which two of them were come out to be human girls. Both the girls were taken to an orphanage in Mindapore and were observed eating raw meat, licking the liquid and walking on the four instead of walking erect like normal human beings. They contained all the characteristics a wolf possesses and were very fast like squirrels in mobility. They tried to attack the humans as soon as they found them and displayed all the methods prone to a wolf. They could not survive among humans and the younger died very soon within one year, though the elder lived for more years.

(Quoted in Audiblox.com) Both the above-mentioned stories raised many questions in human mind regarding nature-nurture theories of human psychology. Social psychology is interested in studying whether an individuals behavior personality traits are dependent of his innate qualities or it is socialization and learning that plays dominant role in making up of a personality. Psychologist theorists including Cooley and Mead had articulated theories in order to estimate human psychology. Charles Herbert Cooley, the renowned social psychologist, is of the opinion that self always arises while interaction within a group.

He states that the society is like an organic whole and systematic relationship between social processes is necessary for organized existence of a social set up. It is Cooley who first introduced the term "primary group" which plays pivotal part in mans life. Primary group not only fulfills all the basic needs and desires of an individual, including food, clothes, shelter and protection, but also is responsible for his socialization and informal education and training. Cooleys "The Looking Glass Self Theory", articulated in 1902, submits that an individual sees and estimates himself from the point of view of others and thus acts, reacts and behaves accordingly while entering into interaction process with others.

The gestures of others serve as mirrors in which people see and evaluate themselves, just they see and evaluate other objects in their social environment. (Turner, 1978:313) An individual perceives how other individuals think about him and he develops himself in such a way that could be acceptable according to their views about him. Hence, mans personality is developed by two things i.e. how people perceive themselves on the one hand and how other individuals see them on the other. It is therefore, the behavior, performance, attitude and even body language of others serve as mirror for an individual who looks into self by the attitude of others.

Looking into the stories of feral children including Memmie, Amala and Kamala, it becomes evident that social and physical environments regulate human behavior. Though some of the innate traits concealed in mind surely determine mans behavior, but nevertheless, developments in human behavior are dependent of the environment where his is nurtured and brought up. The same is the case with Memmie, who had started climbing over trees and eating raw food while living with animals in a jungle. In the same way, Kamala and Amala also behaved like wild wolf in all their behavior because they had observed the objects in their environment in the same way.

Another American Philosopher and Psychologist George Herbert Mead had articulated his synthesis of "Mind, Self and Society". According to Meads synthesis human mind, social synthesis and structure of society work in combination to develop human behavior. The theory submits that it is the individuals biological needs that support him making adjustments in an environment how much unsuitable they look in the beginning. Secondly, the desire to survive forces individuals co-operate with the other objects of his environment.

"Human mind", mead states, "has capacity to use symbols in order to designate objects in the environment as well as to rehearse covertly alternative lines of action towards these objects; similarly, his mind inhibits inappropriate lines of action and select a proper course of overt action. All that is especially true while keenly observing the behavior of feral children described in the above stories. Memmies use of symbols and her fondness and familiarity with her environment clearly proves Meads synthesis of mind, self and society.

The use of cry to alert her fellow being Negro girl and showing gestures to convey her message reveals the very fact that human mind contains innate characteristic of using symbols in order to convey the message in the absence of common language. Similarly, had the two girls made no co-operation, survival of both of them could have been in serious jeopardy. Thirdly, human mind had the capacity to mould itself according to the prevailing social environment, as Memmie started learning French language in the new social environment.

The body languages applied by Indian feral girls i.e. Kamala and Amala also signify the fact that they had learnt all the symbols, signs and body gestures during their interaction with wild wolves. REFERENCESClarissa Pinkola Estes. Women Who Run With The Wolves Myths and Stories of Wild Woman Archetype. Ballantine Books, New York. 1995George Ritzer. Sociological Theory 6th Edition. McGraw Hill 2004 Jonathan H. Turner. The Structure of Sociological Theory 3rd Edition. The Dorsey Press Homewood, Illinois 1978Michael Newton.

Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children Quoted in the Guardian Unlimited, January 19 2002 (http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,635802,00.html)http://www.audiblox2000.com/learning_disabilities/feral.htmhttp://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Feral.htm