Teaching notes: Menace in Dracula and Dorian Gray

Board-published responses

• Pearson 2019 principal examiner’s report, Q10, pp. 88–93 (40/40). Its introduction defines menace historically: in a society clinging to conservative norms, change itself registers as menace. That one frame organises three strands: the foreign “other”, sexual “deviancy” and the New Woman. Each strand sets the texts side by side and ends on a difference. The decisive move is that Stoker treats deviance as the menace, while Wilde shows society menacing those who deviate. The conclusion weighs the authors (Stoker upholds the domestic ideal, Wilde undermines it). The commentary (p. 94) praises integrated context, quotations explored for more than one meaning, and purposeful concision. Read it (Pearson’s own material).
• Pearson Summer 2019 Exemplars pack, Paper 2, Script 7, pp. 37–40; commentary p. 64 (20 + 20 = 40/40). Its thesis is that the true menace is the self. It sets the Count’s courtly welcome against his “demoniac” eyes, and Dorian’s beauty against his corruption, reading both through the Victorian double. It then moves to sexual menace and the fear of exposure. The commentary says the candidate “interpreted the question at a sophisticated level” (p. 64). Some period “facts” in the script are asserted loosely, so use it for its structure. Read it (Pearson’s own material).

What the examiners said

• Define “menace” early. Answers were helped by saying in the introduction what they meant by menace (report, p. 86).
• Answer this question. A common slip was writing about fear, threat or “evil characters”, topics from earlier papers, instead of menace (report, p. 86).
• Look beyond the monsters. Strong answers showed how characters, settings and relationships create menace, not only the supernatural beings (report, p. 86). The mark scheme’s indicative content includes early signs of menace (the portrait’s changes), structure that builds menace (Stoker’s shifts of location), and locations such as Whitby and Dorian’s attic (mark scheme, p. 16).
• Compare and evaluate. Level 5 asks for a “critical and evaluative” argument that evaluates connections between the texts (mark scheme, pp. 14–15). Both full-mark answers do this by ending each strand on a difference.
• How the examiners view context: the best answers combined analysis of Gothic convention with the specific social menace each novel depicts, the “other” in Dracula and London’s hidden corruption in Dorian Gray. Useful contexts were reverse colonisation, physiognomy and Victorian fears of otherness and invasion from the East (report, p. 86). In the same report Pearson warns against assuming that one “Victorian context” fits both novels (report, p. 79). Its 2025 report adds that context must be developed into a point about the text, not stated bare (2025 report, pp. 4–5).