Chapters 1 to 12 — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Chapters 1 to 12
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Netherfield let to Mr Bingley, the Meryton assembly and Darcy's slight, Charlotte Lucas on marriage, and Jane's illness and Elizabeth's stay at Netherfield.
What each chapter establishes about character and theme, with key quotations.
Key quotations: 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife', 'What a fine thing for our girls!', 'the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world', 'She is tolerable: but not handsome enough to tempt me', 'Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance', 'a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman', 'you must be two of the silliest girls in the country', 'six inches deep in mud', 'A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages', 'Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her', 'My good opinion once lost is lost for ever'.
Form: the ironic opening sentence, the dialogue between Mr and Mrs Bennet in Chapter 1, and the assembly's gossip, which turns from admiring Darcy's 'ten thousand a year' to calling him proud.
Context: the entail on Longbourn, explained in Chapter 7, and why five daughters and no son make Mrs Bennet so anxious to see them married.
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.
