During the key action points in both Dracula and Frankenstein, the respective authors describe the setting against which the action takes place in some detail. As well as adding to their reader’s mental picture of the scenario described, the setting also helps to set the atmosphere and mood, and so helps to shape the reader’s opinions of the actions viewed against the particular setting.

Clearly, an important point in both novels is where we meet the chief antagonist for the first time. In Dracula, this occurs early in the novel, during the second chapter. The function of the preceding chapter, as well as introducing us to the chief protagonist, is to inform us about the setting and build up to the introduction of Dracula himself. The setting is described in such a way that it seems unfamiliar, and slightly disconcerting. This effect is achieved through the use of unfamiliar lexis, such as foreign words and place names, such as ‘Isten szek’, ‘vlkoslak’ and ‘Bukovina’. This language would seem even more strange to Stoker’s contemporary audience, because of the reduced experience this audience would have had with other cultures compared to a more modern audience.

The setting for the meeting is typically Gothic. This is shown though the emphasis on the remote setting, and the mystery which surrounds this setting. This is shown particularly when Harker muses about visiting ‘an unknown place to visit an unknown man’. Here, Stoker has chosen to use the rhetorical feature of repetition in order to emphasise that this place is unknown both to Jonathan and the reader, and so the action which will take place in this setting is also unknown and unfamiliar. This is obviously designed to unsettle the reader, in order that they may begin to understand and experience Harker’s unease. There is also much emphasis on darkness, as well as meteorological phenomena. For example, Jonathan writes of ‘dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder’. The comparative rarity of thunderstorms in England, combined with their destructive potential, perhaps contributes to the way in which they are viewed in society as unsettling and frightening. Here, Stoker draws on these popular views in order to create his setting of unease. The setting outside of Castle Dracula is also used to provide a contrast with the setting inside, which Harker describes as having initial qualities of ‘light and warmth’ which ‘dissipated all my doubts and fears’. This helps the initial situation seem more real to the reader – the comparative positive qualities of the castle, shown by words with particularly positive connotations such as ‘light’ and ‘warmth’, contrasted against the words of negative connotations used to describe the setting in which the castle sits, such as ‘dark’ and ‘wild’ mean that the reader does not doubt Jonathan’s judgement when entering the castle. If, at this early stage, the contrast had been reversed then it would seem unusual for Jonathan to rush into the castle with so little hesitation.

The introduction of the creature in Frankenstein happens in a very different setting to that of the introduction of Dracula. The setting is described as ‘dreary’, and Victor is alliteratively described as suffering from ‘an anxiety that almost amount to agony’. The alliteration here helps this emphasise the fact that Victor is not completing his creation in any rush of excitement. Indeed, at this stage, Victor does not even seem to be particularly enthusiastic about his work. This helps to increase our sense of the horror Victor experiences when the creature is created. This is particularly emphasised through the repetition of the word ‘horror’, as well as the continued use of words from the semantic field of death, such as ‘an inanimate body’, ‘corpse’ and ‘dead’. During the creature’s ‘birth’, it is rather the fact that the setting changes very little that is important.