OCR GCSE English Literature key terms

A small group or setting that represents features of a larger society.

The movement of people from one country or region to another to live there.

A reserve military force raised for service at home rather than overseas. In Austen’s period, militia units helped protect Britain against invasion.

A person who hoards money and is unwilling to spend it, even on comfort or helping others.

Hostility towards women or attitudes that treat women as inferior to men.

A person who travels to spread their religious faith. St John Rivers intends to undertake Christian missionary work in India.

An attempt to spread a religion and convert others; in the novel’s opening, the phrase exposes assumptions about the supposed inferiority of those being converted.

A humorous style that gives small or ordinary things the grand language associated with heroic achievements.

A poem or passage spoken by one voice, revealing that speaker’s thoughts, experiences or character.

The ability to recognise fairness, cruelty or wrongdoing, even without being able to explain it fully.

A difficult question about what is right or wrong, especially when different responsibilities or interests conflict.

A story designed to convey a lesson about right and wrong behaviour.

Beliefs about right and wrong that shape how people judge and act towards others.

A dramatic form that teaches moral lessons through characters’ wrongdoing, judgement and opportunities to change.

A story intended to teach a lesson about right and wrong. An Inspector Calls uses an investigation to test whether its characters will recognise their wrongdoing and change.

Accountability for the harm caused by an action or failure to act, whether or not it results in legal punishment.

Serious moral corruption or wickedness. Lanyon uses this expression to condemn what Jekyll reveals.

A recurring image, idea or feature that helps develop meaning across a text, such as the references to horns in Much Ado About Nothing.

A reason behind a character’s action or decision.

A character through whom a writer expresses an argument or moral message.

An eighteenth-century spiritual and military leader of Jamaica’s Windward Maroons, recognised as a Jamaican national heroine and associated with resistance to British colonial rule.

The resolution of a narrative’s main conflicts, often accompanied by an account of the characters’ later lives.

The shortening of narrative time, so that a long period of events is covered in relatively little text.

The position from which events are presented, shaping what readers know and how they understand characters.

A poem that tells a story through a sequence of events.

An ending that settles a story’s central problems and gives a sense of completion.

The perspective through which events are presented. A third-person narrator describes characters as ‘he’ or ‘they’; in these chapters, readers generally discover events alongside Utterson.