The De Laceys — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
The De Laceys
Characters
What you need to know
How Shelley presents The De Laceys, and how the character develops across the text: the exiled family whose love teaches the creature, and whose rejection turns him to revenge.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch! who had never beheld aught beautiful before', 'they were a mixture of pain and pleasure', 'Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion', 'The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant', 'condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country', 'an independence of spirit', 'I required kindness and sympathy', 'the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity', 'I and my family have been condemned, although innocent', 'My protectors had departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the world', 'Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely?'.
The De Laceys as a model of family love, and the creature's education by watching them through a chink in the wall.
Safie's story, the Turk's betrayal and the family's exile: prejudice, religion and a woman's freedom in the novel.
Edexcel's novel question has two parts, and neither marks context: part (a) on the printed extract marks language, form and structure (AO2); part (b) on the novel elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1), not language analysis. Use context only where it explains a reading, and say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
