What is the Role of Setting in Frankenstein?
Author: Martin Munyao Muinde
Email: ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Course: [Course Name]
Date: [Date]
Abstract
The role of setting in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein extends far beyond mere geographical backdrop, functioning as an active participant in the narrative that reflects character psychology, reinforces thematic content, and drives plot development. This essay examines how Shelley employs various settings—from the domestic warmth of Geneva to the desolate Arctic wilderness—to mirror the emotional and moral journey of her characters while establishing the gothic atmosphere that permeates the novel. Through detailed analysis of key locations including university laboratories, Alpine landscapes, and polar regions, this paper demonstrates that setting serves as both external environment and internal reflection, creating a complex relationship between place and character that enhances the novel’s exploration of isolation, scientific transgression, and the consequences of unchecked ambition. The strategic use of contrasting environments reveals how setting functions as a sophisticated literary device that contributes to character development, thematic resonance, and narrative structure.
Introduction
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus demonstrates the profound importance of setting as a literary device that transcends simple geographical description to become an integral component of narrative meaning. Published in 1818, the novel spans multiple locations across Europe and beyond, each carefully chosen to reflect and enhance the psychological, emotional, and thematic content of the story. From the comfortable domesticity of the Frankenstein family home in Geneva to the terrifying isolation of the Arctic ice, Shelley uses setting not merely as a backdrop for action but as an active force that shapes character development, reinforces thematic concerns, and drives narrative progression.
The role of setting in Frankenstein operates on multiple levels simultaneously, functioning as external environment, psychological mirror, and symbolic representation. Shelley’s careful attention to geographical and atmospheric details creates a complex relationship between character and place that reflects the Romantic movement’s emphasis on the connection between human emotion and natural environment. The novel’s various settings serve to externalize the internal struggles of its characters while providing symbolic commentary on the broader themes of scientific progress, moral responsibility, and the relationship between civilization and wilderness. Understanding the multifaceted role of setting in Frankenstein reveals the sophisticated literary techniques that have made the novel a cornerstone of both gothic and science fiction literature (Levine, 1973).
Geneva: The Domestic Sphere and Lost Innocence
Geneva, Switzerland, serves as the primary domestic setting in Frankenstein, representing family harmony, social stability, and the innocent world that Victor’s scientific pursuits will ultimately destroy. Shelley’s portrayal of Geneva emphasizes its role as a sanctuary of domestic happiness and moral order, establishing a stark contrast with the transgressive spaces where Victor conducts his experiments. The Swiss city functions as both Victor’s point of origin and his ultimate destination, representing the home and family connections that his obsessive pursuit of knowledge forces him to abandon.
The Frankenstein family estate in Geneva embodies the ideal of Romantic domesticity, characterized by loving relationships, moral guidance, and connection to natural beauty. Shelley describes the family’s life there as one of “domestic peace” and “affection” (Shelley, 1818, p. 19), establishing Geneva as a space where human relationships flourish and moral values are nurtured. The presence of Elizabeth Lavenza, adopted into the family and raised as Victor’s future bride, reinforces Geneva’s association with love, commitment, and the continuation of family traditions. The city’s location amid the natural beauty of Lake Geneva and the surrounding mountains further emphasizes its role as a place where human civilization exists in harmony with the natural world, contrasting sharply with the unnatural and isolated spaces where Victor will conduct his experiments.
However, Geneva’s role as a sanctuary becomes increasingly compromised as the consequences of Victor’s actions reach back to threaten his family and community. The murder of William Frankenstein within sight of the family home marks the beginning of Geneva’s transformation from safe haven to site of tragedy, demonstrating how Victor’s transgressive actions contaminate even the most protected domestic spaces. The execution of Justine Moritz for William’s murder further corrupts Geneva’s association with justice and moral order, revealing how the consequences of scientific transgression extend beyond the individual to affect entire communities. This gradual corruption of the domestic sphere reinforces the novel’s theme that moral violations in one sphere of life inevitably spread to contaminate all aspects of human existence (Gilbert & Gubar, 1979).
University Settings: Spaces of Knowledge and Transgression
The university settings in Frankenstein, particularly the University of Ingolstadt, serve as crucial spaces where legitimate scientific inquiry transforms into dangerous transgression. Shelley carefully constructs these academic environments to reflect the tension between authorized knowledge and forbidden experimentation, using the physical spaces of laboratories, lecture halls, and private studies to mirror Victor’s journey from promising student to transgressive creator. The university setting represents both the promise and the peril of scientific education, embodying the Enlightenment faith in rational inquiry while revealing the dangers of knowledge pursued without moral constraints.
Ingolstadt University functions as the primary space of Victor’s transformation from innocent student to obsessed experimenter. The university’s laboratories and lecture halls initially represent legitimate scientific authority, places where knowledge is transmitted according to established protocols and moral boundaries. Professor Waldman’s laboratory, where Victor first encounters modern chemistry, serves as the gateway between traditional scientific education and the dangerous experiments that will follow. Shelley’s description of the laboratory equipment and experimental apparatus emphasizes the sophisticated technology available to Victor, foreshadowing the advanced nature of his later experiments while establishing the university as a space where the impossible might become possible.
The transformation of Victor’s private study into a space of secret experimentation represents the corruption of legitimate academic space by transgressive ambition. As Victor becomes increasingly obsessed with his research, his study evolves from a place of learning into a laboratory of forbidden creation, isolated from both academic oversight and moral guidance. The secrecy that surrounds Victor’s work transforms the university setting from a space of shared knowledge into one of dangerous isolation, reflecting the way his scientific pursuits separate him from human community and moral accountability. This transformation of academic space mirrors Victor’s own moral deterioration, demonstrating how the pursuit of knowledge without ethical constraints corrupts both the researcher and the environment in which research takes place (Yousef, 2003).
The Laboratory: Gothic Space of Creation and Horror
The laboratory setting in Frankenstein represents one of the novel’s most significant spaces, functioning as the site of Victor’s greatest triumph and the source of his ultimate destruction. Shelley’s depiction of Victor’s laboratory emphasizes its gothic characteristics—secrecy, isolation, and association with death—while establishing it as a space where natural boundaries are transgressed and moral order is violated. The laboratory serves as both creative and destructive space, embodying the dual nature of scientific progress and its potential consequences.
Victor’s description of his laboratory work emphasizes the gothic horror of his research environment, surrounded by “instruments of life around me” while working among “the unhallowed damps of the grave” (Shelley, 1818, p. 34). The laboratory’s association with charnel houses, dissecting rooms, and burial grounds establishes it as a space where the boundaries between life and death are blurred, reflecting the transgressive nature of Victor’s experiments. The physical isolation of the laboratory mirrors Victor’s emotional and moral isolation, as his obsessive work separates him from family, friends, and normal human society. This separation is both cause and consequence of his transgressive research, demonstrating how the pursuit of forbidden knowledge requires and produces isolation from moral community.
The laboratory also serves as a space of temporal distortion, where Victor loses track of normal time and seasonal cycles in his obsessive pursuit of his goal. His description of working “with unremitting ardour” while “the summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit” (Shelley, 1818, p. 33) establishes the laboratory as a space outside normal temporal flow, where natural rhythms are replaced by the artificial urgency of scientific obsession. This temporal isolation foreshadows the way Victor’s creation will disrupt the natural order of life and death, while his loss of connection to seasonal cycles reflects his broader disconnection from natural and moral law. The laboratory thus becomes a symbol of scientific hubris, representing the dangers of pursuing knowledge in isolation from natural and social constraints (Spark, 1987).
Alpine Landscapes: Sublime Nature and Human Insignificance
The Alpine settings in Frankenstein play a crucial role in establishing the novel’s exploration of the sublime while providing a natural backdrop that dwarfs human ambition and achievement. Shelley’s detailed descriptions of Swiss mountain landscapes serve multiple functions, offering both refuge and revelation to her characters while establishing nature as a force that transcends human understanding and control. The Alpine settings embody the Romantic fascination with natural grandeur while serving as spaces where characters confront both the majesty and terror of forces beyond human comprehension.
Victor’s frequent retreats to Alpine landscapes throughout the novel demonstrate his ongoing relationship with sublime nature and its role in providing both comfort and challenge to his troubled psyche. The “sublime and magnificent scenes” of Mont Blanc and the surrounding peaks offer Victor temporary respite from his tormented existence, yet these same landscapes become the site of his most significant confrontation with his creature (Shelley, 1818, p. 67). The mountains’ combination of beauty and danger mirrors the dual nature of Victor’s scientific achievement, while their vast scale serves to diminish human ambition and reveal the insignificance of individual desires in the face of natural grandeur. These Alpine encounters force Victor to confront the consequences of his actions within a setting that emphasizes both the power and the limits of human achievement.
The creature’s affinity for Alpine landscapes reveals another dimension of setting’s role in the novel, as these wild spaces provide the only environment where the creature can exist without persecution from human society. The mountains serve as refuge for the creature while simultaneously emphasizing its isolation from human community, creating a complex relationship between natural space and social exclusion. The creature’s eloquent description of mountain scenery during its confrontation with Victor demonstrates its capacity for aesthetic appreciation, challenging assumptions about its monstrous nature while establishing the Alps as a space where conventional moral and social categories are suspended. The setting thus becomes a space of moral ambiguity where victim and victimizer meet on equal terms, removed from the social structures that would normally define their relationship (Mellor, 1988).
Urban Environments: Civilization and Its Discontents
The urban settings in Frankenstein, including London, Oxford, and various European cities, represent the spaces of human civilization and scientific progress while also serving as sites where the consequences of transgressive science manifest most clearly. Shelley’s portrayal of urban environments emphasizes their role as centers of learning and culture while revealing the ways in which civilized society can both enable and be threatened by scientific advancement. These city settings provide crucial contrast to the natural landscapes that dominate much of the novel, establishing the tension between human achievement and natural order that drives much of the narrative conflict.
London, where Victor travels to continue his research and potentially create a companion for his creature, represents the pinnacle of scientific and cultural achievement in the early nineteenth century. The city’s libraries, laboratories, and intellectual resources provide Victor with the tools necessary for his advanced experiments, yet the urban environment also serves as a site of moral corruption and dangerous temptation. Victor’s time in London is marked by increasing isolation and paranoia, as the pressures of his secret research and the creature’s threats transform the civilized urban environment into a space of anxiety and fear. The contrast between London’s external appearance of order and progress and Victor’s internal experience of chaos and terror demonstrates how individual transgression can corrupt even the most advanced civilized spaces.
The various European cities through which Victor travels during his pursuit of the creature serve as markers of his progressive isolation from human society and normal social relationships. Each urban environment becomes a temporary stage for Victor’s obsessive quest, yet none provides the stability or community that might offer alternative to his destructive path. The cities’ role as waypoints in Victor’s journey emphasizes the restless, driven nature of his pursuit while demonstrating how his obsession transforms every environment into a space of anxiety and alienation. These urban settings reveal the inadequacy of civilization to contain or resolve the consequences of scientific transgression, suggesting that the problems created by unchecked ambition cannot be solved within the frameworks of existing social and intellectual institutions (Botting, 1996).
The Arctic: Ultimate Isolation and Cosmic Indifference
The Arctic setting that frames Frankenstein represents the ultimate expression of isolation, desolation, and cosmic indifference that permeates the novel’s exploration of human ambition and its consequences. Shelley’s choice of the polar regions as both opening and closing setting establishes the Arctic as a space beyond normal human habitation, where the usual rules of civilization and social interaction are suspended. The ice and snow of the polar landscape create an environment that is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, sublime and deadly, reflecting the dual nature of the scientific knowledge that drives the novel’s central conflict.
Captain Walton’s Arctic expedition serves as both frame and mirror for Victor’s scientific pursuits, establishing parallels between geographical and intellectual exploration while demonstrating how the quest for knowledge can lead to dangerous isolation from human community. The Arctic setting emphasizes the theme of ambition leading to isolation, as both Walton and Victor find themselves separated from normal human society by their respective quests for achievement and discovery. The polar landscape’s hostility to human life serves as a natural metaphor for the consequences of pursuing knowledge beyond safe moral and social boundaries, while the expedition’s dependence on favorable weather conditions reveals the ultimate powerlessness of human ambition in the face of natural forces.
The Arctic also serves as the final battleground between Victor and his creature, providing a setting that reflects the exhaustion and futility of their mutual pursuit. The endless expanse of ice and snow creates a landscape where normal human relationships and social structures are impossible, reducing the conflict between creator and creation to its most elemental terms. The polar setting’s association with death and sterility emphasizes the destructive consequences of Victor’s transgression, while its vast scale dwarfs human concerns and reveals the cosmic indifference that surrounds human suffering. The creature’s final departure into the Arctic darkness provides a conclusion that emphasizes the irreversible nature of Victor’s choices and their consequences, as both creator and creation are consumed by the desolate landscape that reflects their mutual destruction (O’Flinn, 1986).
Liminal Spaces: Thresholds and Transformations
Throughout Frankenstein, Shelley employs liminal spaces—thresholds, borders, and transitional environments—to mark crucial moments of character transformation and plot development. These in-between spaces serve as sites where normal rules and expectations are suspended, allowing for the supernatural and transgressive events that drive the narrative forward. The concept of liminality is particularly important in gothic literature, where boundaries between life and death, natural and supernatural, and human and monster are constantly being challenged and crossed.
The threshold of Victor’s laboratory represents perhaps the most significant liminal space in the novel, marking the boundary between legitimate scientific inquiry and transgressive experimentation. The moment when Victor crosses this threshold to begin his creation of life represents a fundamental transformation in his character and moral status, marking his transition from promising student to transgressive creator. The laboratory door becomes a symbolic boundary between the known world of conventional science and the unknown realm of supernatural creation, with each crossing representing Victor’s progressive movement away from normal human society and moral accountability. The secrecy that surrounds Victor’s laboratory work emphasizes its liminal nature, as he operates in a space that exists outside normal academic and social oversight.
Doorways, windows, and other architectural thresholds throughout the novel serve as sites where characters encounter the consequences of Victor’s transgression, particularly in the creature’s appearances at moments of domestic happiness and security. The creature’s appearance at windows and doorways emphasizes its role as a disruptive force that threatens the boundaries between safety and danger, civilization and wilderness, known and unknown. These liminal appearances create moments of terror while demonstrating how Victor’s creation of the creature has made all boundaries permeable and all safe spaces vulnerable. The creature’s ability to cross these thresholds at will reflects its supernatural nature while emphasizing the way Victor’s transgression has disrupted the normal order that previously provided security and stability (Jackson, 1981).
Natural Versus Artificial Environments
The contrast between natural and artificial environments in Frankenstein serves to highlight the novel’s central conflict between natural order and scientific transgression. Shelley consistently associates natural settings with moral guidance, emotional healing, and spiritual renewal, while artificial environments—particularly laboratories and urban spaces—are portrayed as sites of corruption, isolation, and moral degradation. This dichotomy reflects Romantic ideals about the relationship between humanity and nature while serving the novel’s critique of scientific materialism and technological progress.
Natural environments throughout the novel provide characters with opportunities for moral reflection and emotional restoration, serving as correctives to the artificial pressures and temptations of civilized life. Victor’s childhood experiences in the natural beauty surrounding Geneva establish his early connection to the natural world, while his later retreats to Alpine landscapes provide temporary relief from the psychological torment caused by his transgressive experiments. The healing power of natural settings is consistently contrasted with the destructive effects of artificial environments, particularly the laboratory spaces where Victor conducts his experiments in isolation from natural cycles and moral community. This pattern establishes nature as a source of moral guidance that Victor increasingly ignores as he becomes more deeply involved in his transgressive research.
The artificial environments of laboratories, dissecting rooms, and charnel houses represent spaces where natural boundaries are violated and moral order is suspended. These settings are characterized by artificial lighting, controlled atmospheric conditions, and isolation from natural cycles, reflecting the way scientific experimentation attempts to control and manipulate natural processes. Victor’s description of working by candlelight through the night while the rest of the world sleeps emphasizes the unnatural quality of his research, while his use of electricity to animate dead tissue represents the ultimate artificial intervention in natural processes. The progressive corruption of Victor’s character corresponds directly to his increasing immersion in these artificial environments, demonstrating how separation from natural settings leads to moral and psychological deterioration (Mellor, 1988).
Psychological Landscapes: External Environment as Internal State
One of the most sophisticated aspects of setting in Frankenstein is Shelley’s use of external environments to reflect and reinforce the psychological states of her characters. This technique, characteristic of Romantic literature, creates a complex relationship between inner experience and outer reality that enhances character development while providing symbolic commentary on the novel’s central themes. The correspondence between psychological state and environmental description creates a unified aesthetic experience that deepens the emotional impact of the narrative.
Victor’s psychological deterioration is consistently mirrored by increasingly hostile and desolate environmental settings, beginning with his isolation in the laboratory and progressing through various stages of alienation and despair. As Victor becomes more deeply involved in his transgressive experiments, the settings around him become correspondingly dark, cold, and threatening, reflecting his progressive separation from normal human society and moral community. The creature’s murder of William occurs during a thunderstorm, with lightning illuminating the “gigantic stature” of the creature against the dark sky (Shelley, 1818, p. 50), creating a setting that mirrors the violence and unnaturalness of the act itself. The storm’s fury reflects Victor’s internal turmoil upon discovering his brother’s death, while the darkness provides appropriate concealment for the creature’s first act of revenge.
The creature’s own psychological journey is similarly reflected in its relationship to various environmental settings, from its initial wonder at natural beauty to its eventual association with desolation and destruction. The creature’s early experiences in the natural world are characterized by sensory delight and aesthetic appreciation, reflecting its initial innocence and capacity for positive emotion. However, as the creature experiences rejection and develops feelings of revenge, its preferred environments become increasingly harsh and isolated, culminating in its affinity for the Arctic wilderness. The correspondence between the creature’s emotional development and its environmental preferences demonstrates how setting functions as an external manifestation of internal psychological processes, creating a complex relationship between character and place that enhances the novel’s exploration of the relationship between nature and nurture in determining behavior (Kiely, 1964).
Gothic Atmosphere and Environmental Horror
The gothic elements of Frankenstein are heavily dependent on Shelley’s masterful use of setting to create an atmosphere of horror, mystery, and supernatural dread. The novel’s various environments contribute to its gothic atmosphere through their association with death, decay, and the transgression of natural boundaries. From the charnel houses where Victor conducts his research to the desolate landscapes where the creature roams, each setting contributes to the overall sense of unease and foreboding that characterizes gothic literature.
The graveyards and charnel houses that Victor frequents during his research represent archetypal gothic spaces where the boundaries between life and death are most permeable. These settings emphasize the unnatural and transgressive nature of Victor’s experiments while creating an atmosphere of morbid fascination and horror. Shelley’s description of Victor’s nocturnal visits to these spaces of death emphasizes their role in transforming him from a living being connected to human community into something approaching the undead—isolated, secretive, and obsessed with death. The physical environment of these spaces, with their “damps of the grave” and association with decay, serves to corrupt Victor spiritually and morally, demonstrating how immersion in environments associated with death leads to the death of normal human feeling and moral sensitivity.
The novel’s domestic spaces also take on gothic characteristics as the consequences of Victor’s transgression begin to manifest, transforming familiar environments into sites of terror and threat. The Frankenstein family home, initially portrayed as a sanctuary of domestic happiness, becomes increasingly vulnerable to invasion by the creature, with locked doors and windows providing insufficient protection against supernatural threat. The creature’s ability to penetrate these supposedly secure spaces demonstrates how Victor’s transgression has made all boundaries permeable, transforming even the most protected domestic environments into sites of potential horror. This corruption of domestic space reflects the gothic theme that evil, once introduced into the world, cannot be contained or controlled, but spreads to contaminate all aspects of human existence (Botting, 1996).
Seasonal Cycles and Temporal Settings
Shelley’s attention to seasonal cycles and temporal settings in Frankenstein creates another layer of environmental meaning that reinforces the novel’s thematic content while providing structural coherence to the narrative. The progression of seasons throughout the novel corresponds to the emotional and moral development of the characters, with spring representing hope and renewal, summer embodying the height of passion and ambition, autumn suggesting decline and consequence, and winter representing death and desolation. This seasonal framework provides natural rhythm to the narrative while emphasizing the cyclical nature of creation and destruction.
The timing of Victor’s creation of the creature during the autumn months establishes a connection between his transgressive act and the natural cycle of death and decay. The “dreary night of November” when Victor succeeds in animating dead tissue (Shelley, 1818, p. 35) associates his achievement with the season of dying, foreshadowing the death and destruction that will follow from his success. The autumn setting emphasizes the unnatural timing of Victor’s creation of life, as he brings forth living being during the season when nature itself is preparing for winter death. This temporal irony reinforces the theme that Victor’s scientific achievement represents a violation of natural order, with consequences that will manifest throughout the remaining seasonal cycles.
The progression of seasons also serves to mark the passage of time and the development of consequences from Victor’s initial transgression. Each seasonal cycle brings new manifestations of the creature’s revenge, with the murder of William occurring during spring, Justine’s execution taking place in summer, and Elizabeth’s death happening during the autumn of Victor’s wedding night. This seasonal progression creates a sense of inevitable temporal movement toward destruction, while the cyclical nature of seasons suggests that the consequences of transgression will continue to manifest in recurring patterns of violence and loss. The final Arctic setting exists outside normal seasonal cycles, representing a space beyond natural time where the conflict between Victor and his creature reaches its ultimate resolution in mutual destruction (Brooks, 1978).
Social Spaces and Community Settings
The role of social spaces and community settings in Frankenstein reveals the importance of human community in providing moral guidance and emotional support, while demonstrating how isolation from social connection leads to moral and psychological deterioration. Shelley contrasts spaces of community gathering—family dinners, university discussions, and social visits—with the isolated environments where transgression occurs, emphasizing the protective and corrective function of human society in maintaining moral order.
Family gatherings in the Frankenstein home represent the ideal of social connection and moral community, providing models of appropriate human relationship and moral behavior. These domestic social spaces are characterized by open communication, mutual affection, and shared values, creating an environment where individual desires are balanced against community needs and moral considerations. The warmth and openness of these family gatherings contrast sharply with the secrecy and isolation of Victor’s laboratory work, demonstrating how separation from social community enables transgressive behavior while integration within community provides moral guidance and accountability. The progressive absence of Victor from these family gatherings marks his movement away from moral community and toward the isolation that enables his transgressive experiments.
The destruction of these social spaces by the creature’s revenge demonstrates how individual transgression ultimately threatens the entire fabric of community life. The murders of William and Elizabeth strike at the heart of the Frankenstein family’s social bonds, while the execution of Justine corrupts the broader community’s systems of justice and moral order. These attacks on social spaces reveal how the consequences of scientific transgression extend beyond the individual researcher to threaten the entire network of relationships and institutions that provide meaning and stability to human life. The creature’s systematic destruction of Victor’s social connections forces him into the same isolation that the creature experiences, creating a parallel that emphasizes how transgression against natural order ultimately destroys the transgressor as well as the innocent (Marshall, 1995).
Conclusion
The role of setting in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein extends far beyond simple geographical description to encompass a sophisticated literary technique that serves multiple narrative, thematic, and symbolic functions. Through her careful construction of domestic, academic, natural, and liminal spaces, Shelley creates a complex environmental framework that reflects character psychology, reinforces thematic content, and drives plot development. The contrast between natural and artificial environments, between spaces of community and isolation, and between familiar and transgressive settings establishes a moral geography that guides readers through the novel’s exploration of scientific responsibility and its consequences.
The effectiveness of Shelley’s use of setting lies in its integration with all other aspects of the narrative, creating a unified artistic vision that continues to resonate with contemporary readers. The novel’s various environments serve simultaneously as realistic geographical locations, symbolic representations of psychological states, and metaphorical expressions of moral and philosophical concepts. This multifaceted approach to setting demonstrates the sophisticated literary techniques that have made Frankenstein a enduring masterpiece of both gothic and science fiction literature. The careful attention to environmental detail and atmospheric effect reveals how setting can function as an active participant in narrative meaning rather than simply a passive backdrop for character action. Through this masterful use of setting, Shelley creates a work that explores the relationship between human ambition and natural order while establishing the environmental foundation for one of literature’s most powerful cautionary tales about the responsibilities that accompany scientific knowledge and technological power.
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