The narrator's brother and the Elphinstones — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
The narrator's brother and the Elphinstones
Characters
What you need to know
How Wells presents The narrator's brother and the Elphinstones, and how the character develops across the text: the medical student who sees London's panic, rescues Mrs Elphinstone and her brave sister-in-law on the road, and escapes with them by sea as the Thunder Child fights.
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: 'He was a medical student working for an imminent examination', 'to see the Things before they were killed', 'spent the evening at a music hall', 'Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full power and terror of these monsters', 'the Martians are coming!', 'put all his available money—some ten pounds altogether—into his pockets', 'being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith', 'It was no time for pugilistic chivalry', 'the slender lady very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help', 'would listen to no reasoning', 'For the second time that day this girl proved her quality', 'She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar', 'Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore', 'more amazed than terrified'.
Miss Elphinstone's courage with the revolver and the reins against Mrs Elphinstone's panic and longing for home, and what they suggest about people in a crisis.
Form: the brother as a second narrator, reported by the first, whose account gives the novel its scenes of London, the road north and the sea.
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.
