Class and wealth — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Class and wealth
Themes
What you need to know
How Austen explores rank, money and manners, from Lady Catherine's pride in rank to the Gardiners' good breeding 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: 'a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well-bred and agreeable', 'the mere stateliness of money and rank she thought she could witness without trepidation', 'Younger sons cannot marry where they like', 'Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?', 'Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds', 'He takes them now for people of fashion', 'against whom his pride had revolted', 'He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal', 'Who are your uncles and aunts?', 'What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have!'.
Good breeding against rank: the Gardiners' manners set against Lady Catherine's and Miss Bingley's, and Darcy's change in how he treats Elizabeth's relations.
Context: the landed gentry and the ranks above and below it, income as a measure of standing, and new money from trade.
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.
