Chapters 50 to 59 — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Chapters 50 to 59
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Estella's father revealed, Orlick's trap at the sluice-house, the failed escape on the river, Magwitch's trial and death, Pip's illness and Joe's care,
Joe and Biddy's marriage, Pip's years abroad, and the last meeting with Estella.
Key quotations: 'the man we have in hiding down the river, is Estella's Father', 'It was you as did for your shrew sister', 'afore I kill you like any other beast', 'my repugnance to him had all melted away', 'My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours', 'O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner!', 'O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude', 'you have the best husband in the whole world', 'Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House', 'I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape', 'I saw no shadow of another parting from her'.
Structure: the third stage's resolution, as Pip loses his fortune and is nursed by the man he neglected.
Context: the two endings, and the last sentence Dickens changed after the first edition.
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.
