Chapters 47 to 52 — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Chapters 47 to 52
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The search for Lydia and Wickham, Mr Collins's letter, the hurried marriage, Lydia's visit home, and Mrs Gardiner's letter revealing Darcy's part.
Key quotations: 'You will laugh when you know where I am gone', 'loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable', 'The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this', 'let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame', 'Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds', 'he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her', 'their passions were stronger than their virtue', 'Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman', 'Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know'.
Context: elopement, the Marriage Act and Gretna Green, and why one daughter's disgrace would harm her sisters' chances of marriage.
Structure: the news told through letters, from Lydia's note to Mrs Gardiner's account of what Darcy did, which the novel keeps hidden until Chapter 52.
