Nature vs. nurture: Filling the parental vacuum in "Nicholas Nickleby", "David Copperfield" and "Great Expectations"

When a boy's mother is absent--either dead or lacking in the maternal graces--it is natural for him to look to his father for additional love and guidance. However, if the father is equally ineffectual, the child may seek outside sources to fill the parental void. Natural parents do not guarantee a nurturing atmosphere. Charles Dickens's novels exhibit this form of familial erosion over and over again; his substitutes for marginal mothers (and, consequently, failing fathers) are aunts and uncles, sisters, friends, sweethearts, employers, servants, and, in some cases, the child himself. Primary substitutes are not satisfactory either; Dickens's protagonists must usually go through a couple of failures before the right one is found. It is through this process that the parental vacuum is filled. The works reflect a "Nature vs. Nurture" tug-of-war, with nurture far and away, the winner.