Wickham and Lydia — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Wickham and Lydia
Characters
What you need to know
How Austen presents Wickham and Lydia, and how the character develops across the text: charm without principle and a reckless youngest sister, and the elopement that threatens the family.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'His appearance was greatly in his favour', 'a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address', 'almost all his actions may be traced to pride', 'whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain', 'I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty', 'the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character', 'She saw herself the object of attention to tens and to scores of them at present unknown', 'What a good joke it will be!', 'Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless', 'He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all', 'I am prodigiously proud of him'.
Wickham as a foil to Darcy, charming in manner and bad in principle, and Lydia as a warning of what Elizabeth's liveliness could become without sense.
Context: the regiment of soldiers staying at Meryton and then camped near Brighton, and the rule that anyone under 21 needed a parent's consent to marry in England, which made Gretna Green in Scotland a popular place for elopements.
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.
