Caste

A rigid social rank or division. Jane uses the word to describe the class boundaries she fears crossing.

A rigid social rank or group. Jane uses this word to describe the class boundaries she fears crossing.

Adult Jane explains her childhood decision: “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.” The economic metaphor makes freedom something she could “purchase”, but only by surrendering her rank. This is a revealing contradiction: she wants release from wealthy relatives who mistreat her, yet rejects the possibility of kindness among the poor.

A social rank treated as a fixed division between people. Jane uses the word to describe the class position she fears losing.

Jane the narrator recalls, “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste”. The language of “purchase” and “price” turns escape into a transaction. Freedom from Gateshead would apparently cost her social standing, and she is unwilling to pay.

An inherited social rank. Jane uses the word to describe the class boundaries she fears crossing.

Jane then recalls, “I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.” The metaphor of buying freedom presents escape as a transaction: she could gain liberty only by surrendering the social identity she values. “Caste” suggests that class boundaries feel fixed and difficult to cross.

Definition

How each exam board covers it

AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702

Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0

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OCR GCSE English Literature · J352

Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720