"The Scottish Highlands" by Shiva Shenoy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The history of the Highlands of Scotland in the 18th century, continuing into the mid 19th century, is by the Highland Clarence, which took place after the Battle of Culloden (1746). When Charles Edward, in charge of the Jacobites, “The Young Pretender,” was defeated by Britiains’ William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. 

The Highland Clearances forced Highlanders to evacuate and make way for broader sheep pastoralism. This destroyed their traditional clan societies and would degrade traditional cultural practices and remove power from the clan system, and violently remove Highland Scots from their land. The British government worried they would rebel, so they created restricted laws keeping them from practicing Gaelic culture, banning plaid textile designs, and bagpipe music. The British government allowed outsiders to purchase the land, and they set out to replicate a capitalist agriculture model. 

The Highlands had personal significance for Mary Shelley, as she lived in Dundee from 1812-1814. The Highlands are just east of Dundee. Given Shelley's more liberal political leanings at the time she was writing Frankenstein, I can imagine she felt for the highland people being annexed from their land and culture. 

In Frankenstein, Victor passed through the northern highlands on his way to his ‘obscure nook’ in the Orkneys. Although, this is just a transitional place, the journey Victor had to make through the northern highlands to make it to the Orkney Islands, it again reflects the cold, arduous, blank, rugged landscape Victor would have had to traverse to create the second monster. With the history of the area, and Mary Shelley's time in Scotland as a teenager, it is said that in her home near Dundee is what inspired the setting for Frankestein, which would prove the dreariness of the landscape. 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Highland Clearances". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jan. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Highland-Clearances. Accessed 3 March 2025.

 (n.d.). Mary Shelley — Writer. Dundee Women’s Trail. Retrieved March 3, 2025, from https://www.dundeewomenstrail.org.uk/shelley-mary-writer/#:~:text=%E2%80....

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Edited by Michael Bérubé, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1818.