Pride and Prejudice — WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature

Overview and context

Pride and Prejudice (1813) is the second published novel of Jane Austen (1775–1817). It is set among the landed gentry of Regency England (1811–20) — a society in which a woman's economic security depended almost entirely on a suitable marriage, because property typically passed through the male line by entail. The Bennet estate at Longbourn is entailed away from Mrs Bennet's five daughters to Mr Collins, the next male heir; the urgency of the marriage plot therefore has real material stakes, not just romantic ones.

Plot

Mr and Mrs Bennet have five unmarried daughters. Charles Bingley arrives at nearby Netherfield with his proud friend Mr Darcy. Bingley falls for sweet Jane Bennet; Darcy initially insults sharp-witted Elizabeth ("tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me"). Through a series of misunderstandings — Mr Wickham's lies, Lydia's elopement, Lady Catherine's interference — Elizabeth and Darcy each confront their pride and prejudice and finally marry, alongside Jane and Bingley.

Themes and methods

Austen's tools are free indirect discourse (the narrator's voice slipping into a character's perspective without quotation marks — "It is a truth universally acknowledged...") and irony at every social level: the famous opening sentence parodies the marriage market; Mr Collins's letters parody pretension; Mr Bennet's quips parody parenthood. Marriage itself is shown across a spectrum: Charlotte Lucas marries Collins for security; Lydia for impulse; Jane and Elizabeth for love grounded in respect.

Eduqas exam structure

Section B of Component 2 is a single 40-mark essay on the chosen 19th-century novel: AO1, AO2, AO3 and AO4 SPaG. AO3 is heavily weighted — examiners want sustained reference to Regency social/economic conditions: entail, accomplishments, the Militia, primogeniture, women's exclusion from professions.