Chapters 53 to 61 — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Chapters 53 to 61
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Bingley's return and engagement to Jane, Lady Catherine's visit to Longbourn, Darcy's second proposal, the family's reactions and the marriages that end the novel.
Key quotations: 'I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!', 'You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither', 'Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?', 'Obstinate, headstrong girl!', 'You are too generous to trifle with me', 'My affections and wishes are unchanged', 'Are you out of your senses to be accepting this man?', 'I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley', 'For the liveliness of your mind, I did', 'Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters'.
Structure: the second proposal answering the first, Lady Catherine's visit bringing the couple together against her wishes, and an ending that settles every character's fate.
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.
