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GCSE English Literature · key term
In this historical context, a person of high rank graciously dealing with someone considered socially inferior. Mr Collins treats it as praise, although Austen exposes the superiority it assumes.
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Paper 1
Revise: Lady Catherine de BourghIn Chapter 14, he praises her “such affability and condescension”. Affability means friendliness and approachability. Here, condescension means the gracious attention a superior supposedly offers an inferior: Collins regards it as a virtue, not an insult.
Component 2
The willingness of someone of higher rank to associate with social inferiors, historically understood as gracious behaviour. Austen exposes the superiority assumed within Lady Catherine’s supposed kindness.
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In Chapter 14, the narrator reports Mr Collins’s enthusiastic praise of “such affability and condescension”. “Affability” means friendliness; “condescension” could then describe a superior graciously lowering herself to associate with others. Mr Collins regards this unequal relationship as natural and admirable.
