"Chambered Cairn on the Tarf, Swona, Orkney Islands - geograph.org.uk - 2970112" by Robert Beharie is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

There are more than 70 ancient islands about 20 miles off the Northeast coast of mainland Scotland in the North sea. Only 20 islands are inhabited, with the highest concentration of Neolithic archeology sites in Europe. For most of history, the Orkney’s were controlled by the Norse, and in the 15th century taken over by Scotland. 18th century readers and writers would have been fascinated with the Orkney Islands because of Romanticism and its emphasis on nature. This desolate area would be particularly of interest because it was out of reach and untouched, with rich, ancient history—Shelley’s choice in using the Orkney’s for the second scientific reanimation accentuates the Gothic horror elements. The Orkney Islands appear in Frankenstein after Victor and Henry Clarval end a long excursion through Europe. Victor describes the Orkneys as a place fitted for creating such a monster, “…being hardly more than a rock…The soil barren, scarcely affording pasture for the few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare” (p 138). Victor states that the Orkney’s are so remote it would take the native people five miles to even retrieve fresh water.

This setting encapsulates Frankenstein’s state of mind, and the gravity of his detestable mission to make good on his promise to The Creature. In complete isolation, Victor’s actions in the novel meet him head on. He cannot be distracted as he works to reanimate a female companion for his creation. With harsh reality, barren land, isolation from his family, friends, with the weight of his loved ones deaths, the scene reflects his life and mind, and the consequences of Victor’s unchecked ambition and morbid curiosity come to a head, and he is forced to break his promise and bear the consequences. The Orkney Islands make the perfect, terrible, and horrific setting for Victor's broken promise.

 Curran, Stuart. "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Pennsylvanian Electronic Edition." KNARF, 1 Mar. 2025, knarf.english.upenn.edu/index.html. Accessed 27 Feb. 2025.