Teaching notes · Example 8
Teaching notes: Ancient myth and modern Gothic
Essay question‘Gothic literature often places an ancient myth in a more recent setting.’ Consider how far you agree with this statement by comparing Dracula with at least one other text prescribed for this topic.
These notes sit outside the essay. Related candidate scripts belong to their examination boards and are identified by board, year and task. A reported mark applies to that script, not to the Estate’s example.
Chapter C: Ocr course guide, sources and reports · Board-published candidate-response catalogue.
Teaching notes and examiner feedback
Board-published responses
OCR has not published a full model answer to this question. Its 2023 report reproduces one paragraph, Exemplar 1, with no mark. It was chosen because it pins down what “ancient myth” means for each text before doing anything else: the Vlad legend for Dracula, Prometheus for Frankenstein. Use it for its method (define the key term through the texts at once); its claim that the Count descends from Vlad is the candidate’s, and the working notes do not support it. OCR examiners’ report 2023, Exemplar 1, p. 9 (OCR’s own material). The nearest full-length board model is Pearson’s 2023 full-mark Dracula and Dorian Gray essay, which puts Gothic conventions at the centre of its argument: Pearson 2023 report, pp. 54–56 (Pearson’s own material).
What the examiners said
OCR H472/02 examiners’ report, Summer 2023, Q4(a) (PDF) and mark scheme (PDF):
- Few candidates chose this question. The best asked what the vampire myth means once it is transplanted into late-Victorian England, rather than describing the myth (report, pp. 8–9).
- Don’t swap the question. Some candidates replaced “ancient myth” with traditional gender roles, “substituting ‘ancient myth’ with traditional attitudes relating to gender roles” (report, p. 8). Examiners read this as over-reliance on prepared material.
- A working definition of “myth” is enough (mark scheme, p. 19). Pin it down early; don’t write a dictionary entry.
- Choose a comparison text with its own myth. The report praised comparisons with Frankenstein (Prometheus) and Beloved (African folk belief meeting the history of slavery) (report, pp. 8–9).
- How the examiners view context: AO3 is the dominant objective on this paper (50% of the marks). The mark scheme’s indicative content treats as legitimate Stoker’s years of research into European folklore, the name taken from Vlad the Impaler, Transylvania as the “ancient myth” setting and late-Victorian England as the “recent” one, and the need for faith, even magic, against the myth in a modern scientific England (mark scheme, p. 19). Context should explain the clash between old and new, not stand beside it.
- Prepared but flexible. The series overview says stronger candidates were well prepared but adapted their material to the question asked (report, p. 4).
Points to test
Does the thesis survive its strongest counter-evidence? Check every quotation’s chapter, speaker and context. Where could a different interpretation change the conclusion?
Prepared by the Bram Stoker Estate. Page last updated 8 November 2026. Report a correction here.