In Frankenstein, how is the setting of the story significant to the plot? How does the setting help further the story?

One of the major themes in Frankensteinby Mary Shelley is the relationship between nature and nurture. Victor Frankenstein is almost prototypically urbane and sophisticated, a typical man of the Enlightenment, well traveled and a product of upper class European city culture. Although his monster is a creation of this culture, it is also a tabula rasa (blank slate), an emblem of humanity in the state of nature. As such, the monster shows how humanity...

One of the major themes in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the relationship between nature and nurture. Victor Frankenstein is almost prototypically urbane and sophisticated, a typical man of the Enlightenment, well traveled and a product of upper class European city culture. Although his monster is a creation of this culture, it is also a tabula rasa (blank slate), an emblem of humanity in the state of nature. As such, the monster shows how humanity is influenced by three different types of settings.

The first setting is "civilized" Ingolstadt, a university town. In this setting, of a sophisticated "modern" environment, two things happen. First, a monstrosity is created, suggesting that Shelley is warning us that scientific culture run amok can produce monsters. Second, the creator, Victor, acts with inhumanity towards his creation, not properly nurturing it. This suggests that urban Enlightenment culture may be losing its moral compass.

The rural setting to which the monster escapes allows for the monster to remain alive and undiscovered, and learn human language and manners. This is meant in part to show how the monster's character is formed by its interaction with others -- that it responds to the experience of kindness by learning generous behavior and to enmity by acts of revenge. 

The third setting and frame of the novel is the Arctic, an area of pure nature, in which humans exist only precariously. Despite the harshness of this setting, it is also Edenic, and the monster's escape into it shows him being welcomed in nature in a way he is not in civilization. Also, the setting has the sort of exoticism that works well for an adventure story.