Chapters 1 to 4: Gateshead — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Chapters 1 to 4: Gateshead
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Jane as an orphan at Gateshead Hall: John Reed's bullying, the red-room, Mr Lloyd's visit, Mr Brocklehurst's interview and Jane's outburst against Mrs Reed.
What each chapter establishes about Jane, her place in the family and the novel's themes, with key quotations.
Key quotations: 'Wicked and cruel boy!', 'You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!', 'like a mad cat', 'less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep', 'Unjust!—unjust!', 'I was a discord in Gateshead Hall', 'Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings', 'Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn', 'I will never call you aunt again as long as I live', 'the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt'.
Structure: the adult Jane narrating her childhood, and the red-room as the first of the novel's imprisonments and Gothic scenes.
Context: an orphan dependent on relatives who see her as beneath them, and a child's lack of any power against adults.
OCR's question on this novel is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the novel elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the novel, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts when it is relevant to the question, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
