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Comparing Dracula with Frankenstein
Compare narrative methods, evidence and contexts before developing an argument of your own. These are Estate-written practice suggestions; check your course’s text requirements.
Check your course
Relevant course example: OCR H472, The Gothic (Frankenstein appears among the texts OCR lists for this topic: check the current list). Frankenstein is also a set text alongside Dracula for AQA 7707 Imagined Worlds, but that paper assesses one text without comparison. These are original preparation questions, not official mark schemes.
Why pair these two novels? Both are told through layered documents (letters, journals and embedded narratives), both put a scientist at the centre of a crisis, and both make the monster’s voice a problem: Shelley gives her creature long eloquent speeches, while Stoker almost never lets the Count tell his own story after the castle chapters.
Build a paired evidence plan
| Shared idea | Dracula | Frankenstein (add references from your edition: 1818 or 1831 text) |
|---|---|---|
| Framed narration | The prefatory note claims that “all the records chosen are exactly contemporary” | Walton’s letters frame Victor’s narrative, which frames the creature’s |
| Science and its limits | Transfusions (Chapters 10–12) and Van Helsing’s warning about science that “wants to explain all” (Chapter 14) | Victor’s secret pursuit of the origin of life and its consequences |
| The monster’s voice | The Count in Chapters 2–3; later he speaks mainly through other people’s records, as when he tells Mina “flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood” (Chapter 21) | The creature’s own account at the centre of the novel |
| Collective versus solitary action | “We have on our side power of combination” (Chapter 18) | Victor’s secrecy and isolation |
| Ending | The Count’s destruction and the final note’s admission of “hardly one authentic document” (Chapter 27) | The creature’s departure into the Arctic darkness, unconfirmed |
Use different contexts accurately
Frankenstein belongs to 1816–18 (Romantic science, galvanism, revolution) and was revised in 1831. Dracula belongs to the 1890s (degeneration theory, the New Woman, invasion fiction, modern media). Do not merge them into “the Victorian era”: Frankenstein is not Victorian, and examiners have criticised erroneous “Victorian” dating.
Try an argument, then test it
Claim: Frankenstein sympathises with its monster, while Dracula refuses to.
Test: Mina says, “That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all” (Chapter 23), and records that the Count’s face at the end showed “a look of peace” (Chapter 27). How far does Dracula also invite pity?
Prepare a comparative essay
Practice question (OCR style): “Gothic monsters are most frightening when they are given a voice.” By comparing Dracula with Frankenstein, discuss how far you agree with this view.
Follow the connections
Form and narrative · Writing your own essay · Practising and revising
Use the primary-text and source reference for edition details and context. The Research guide and Bibliography offer further routes.
Prepared by the Bram Stoker Estate. Page last updated 8 November 2026. Report a correction here.