The setting gives the reader an opportunity to imagine. The setting has a big part on the poem because it seems to wrap it together.
Of course. Ideas about the dangers of scientific advancement in the novel are definitely applicable to today's world, maybe even more so than they were relevant then, because we are making more progress faster. For your paper, you can think of the infamous robotic scare that's been around for decades; the idea that if we continue to make and relay and advance with robotic machines, and the toy of artificial intelligence such as Siri, one day they will take over.