the Irish
Improbably, Victor has floated some hundreds of miles. Moreover, as we
discover in the next chapter he is not the only one who has traversed the
open seas southwest of the Orkneys to
land on the northeast coast of Ireland. Although it has been suggested
that including Ireland in the expansive geographical range of the novel
may be Mary Shelley's means of
honoring her mother, who served as
a governess there, the strangeness of this repositioning of setting has
never been adequately accounted for.
From Victor's reference to "a line of high land" (3.3.8), we may suppose that Mary Shelley
has in mind geological features like the
Giant's Causeway, a line of huge islets, or the cliffs of Fair Head, both
identifiable on this map.
![[Map]](../Gifs/irlnmpin.jpg)
adapted from Stephen Gwynn, Highways and Byways in Donegal and
Antrim (London: Macmillan, 1899).
