Where does Victor go to create the female monster?

Victor goes to the Orkney Islands to create the female monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. After the creature demands a companion, Victor travels with Henry Clerval to Britain and establishes a secluded laboratory on a remote island in the Orkney archipelago.

The location matters because Victor wants isolation. He is working on a secret experiment that he fears society would condemn, and the sparse, harsh setting allows Shelley to intensify the novel's atmosphere of loneliness and moral unease. Victor describes the island as bleak and largely uninhabited, with only a few poor huts.

Victor eventually begins to fear that the female creature could reproduce or refuse to obey the original creature. He destroys her unfinished body before bringing her to life. The creature witnesses this destruction and responds with a threat: “I will be with you on your wedding-night.”

Readers sometimes confuse the setting with Scotland or Ireland because the Orkneys are part of Scotland and Victor is later arrested in Ireland. The actual laboratory scene, however, takes place on a remote island in the Orkney Islands, north of mainland Scotland.