Social class and ambition — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Social class and ambition
Themes
What you need to know
How Shakespeare explores rank, service and ambition in Illyria: Malvolio's hopes of rising, Maria's marriage, Olivia and Cesario, and who may cross the boundaries of class across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'What is your parentage?', 'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: / I am a gentleman', 'she'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit', 'Art any more than a steward?', 'There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe', 'Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown', 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em', 'I am not of your element', 'Fear not, Cesario; take thy fortunes up; / Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art / As great as that thou fear'st', 'Maria writ / The letter at Sir Toby's great importance'.
Context: a household where every rank has its place, laws on who could wear which fabrics, and marriages across rank: Olivia and Cesario, Maria and Sir Toby, and Malvolio's dream of Olivia.
Why Malvolio is punished for his ambition while Maria is rewarded for hers.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
