OCR A Level English Language and Literature (EMC) H474/03 Reading as a writer, writing as a reader MARK SCHEME

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How does the writer of your text make use of any one important character in shaping the narrative? You should range across the text to explore how your chosen character is used to shape the nar... rative, the function they play in the novel as a whole, and the broader generic context. A higher level response (levels 4 – 6) will: AO2 Explore the ways the writer uses an important character, going beyond the most obvious features, and giving a strong sense of the role played within the novel as a whole. AO1 Use vocabulary, terminology and narrative concepts appropriately, to analyse the ways in which an important character is used in the novel. Express ideas coherently and fluently, with a wide vocabulary. AO3 Show an understanding of the literary and generic context, using this knowledge to illuminate 32 The indicative content shows an integrated approach to AO2 and AO1 with additional guidance for AO3. Depending on the text studied, candidates may discuss: Jane Eyre AO2 and AO1 Most will choose Jane, as the character who arranges the narrative and settles our view of all the other characters. Answers are likely to show the importance of such a character, operating with the key quality of hindsight, in a Bildungsroman presented from the autobiographical standpoint. Some may select Mr Rochester, as the Byronic hero/villain with a slowly emerging past, the character whose dilemma and moral decisions shape his life, and Jane’s, and force her out onto the moor and into her great dilemmas in the novel’s final section. St John and Helen would be brave choices, but an answer could be sustained by suggesting each offers a higher – or at least a more unworldly – lifestyle than is available to Jane. A colonial reading, or second-wave feminist reading of the novel (or both), might be sustained by explaining the structural importance of Bertha. All of these characters except the last offer usual individuating effects in their speech which might be picked up and analysed by candidates. AO3 The plot is shaped by Mr Rochester’s half-hidden delinquency, not so much by Jane’s candour. This and the semi-repressed nature of other female voices may suggest Charlotte Brontë is driven by pre-feminist concerns. Some will show that the book has many qualities of folklore and even fairy-tale, attractive to an early Victorian audience, darkly shadowing those ‘leading characters’ of literary fairy-tale Bluebeard and, more positively, Cinderella. The Great Gatsby AO2 and AO1 Most will choose Gatsby, that walking contradiction, the Platonic idea of success who is also a cheap bootlegger. Nick’s admiration of him, which grows as his understanding of the character deepens, reveals a Gatsby backstory (which largely shapes the novel) in which he has been soldier, anglophile, Romantic obsessive, pioneer and compiler of his own ‘poor Richard’ conduct books. The novel seamlessly integrates these significant paradoxes in itsH474/03 Mark Scheme October 2021 13 their discussion of the role of the important character in the novel. mixture of celebration and satire. Nick, the shrewd but generous disciple, provides the book’s viewpoint and may be another interesting choice as ‘leading character’. Some are likely to choose Daisy: look for interest in her structural importance, not simply focus on ‘women’s issues’. AO3 Gatsby represents the Mid-Westerner made good through communing with nature and the Protestant virtues, especially in the sequence where he works for Dan Cody; he also represents what Gertrude Stein famously called the ‘lost generation’, whose ideals were shaped by their bit-part in World War One. He is also a generous but not always effectual host, facilitating the dash and gluttony of the ‘roaring twenties’. Daisy is the pre-war fairytale heiress who lacks vim to move forward completely into the novel’s contemporary time of flappers. Nick may be seen as a voice of the Modernist novel, a ‘limited’ narrator who makes a virtue of his limitations, and especially of what he does not securely know. Things Fall Apart AO2 and AO1 Okonkwo, a great if violent man in traditional Igbo society, cannot adapt to the profound changes brought about by the coming of the European missionaries to Nigeria and later to British colonial rule. Candidates are likely to choose him as the ‘important character’ as Achebe conceives him as a tribal equivalent to the protagonist in Greek Tragedy. The nemesis of the novel is brought about by a combination of changing situation and his inflexible personality. There are powerful linguistic contrasts throughout the novel between Okonkwo’s tumultuous feelings and the simple language, often following Igbo rather than English syntax, with which Achebe describes them. AO3 Achebe’s depiction of Okonkwo sees him return to his native community after a seven year exile. Throughout the novel the reader is forced to slot his calculated savagery (particularly the slaughter of Ikefuma) into a wider context of tribal culture and clan need. Essentially a tragic victim of the ‘noble and harmful’ machismo of the tribe, Okonkwo is unable to judge the significance of the coming of the white missionaries, or their impact on his society. Essentially an heroic, unreflecting man, he is prepared to live and die by a su [Show More]

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