Collective P.P - Emma - M4M

EMMA
June 2004
(a) ‘Snobbish, self-centred and patronising …’ Consider the role and characterisation of Emma
Woodhouse in the light of this criticism of her.
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, relating it to Austen’s methods and
concerns in the novel as a whole.
She must communicate the painful truth, however, and as soon as

possible. An injunction of secrecy had been among Mr. Weston’s parting words. “For
the present the whole affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a
point of it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost; and
everybody admitted it to be no more than due decorum.” Emma had promised; but
still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.
In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost ridiculous, that she
should have the very same distressing and delicate office to perform by Harriet
which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by herself. The intelligence, which had
been so anxiously announced to her, she was now to be anxiously announcing to
another. Her heart beat quick on hearing Harriet’s footstep and voice; so, she
supposed, had poor Mrs. Weston felt when she was approaching Randalls. Could
the event of the disclosure bear an equal resemblance! But of that, unfortunately,
there could be no chance.
“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room, “is not this
the oddest news that ever was?”
“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or voice,
whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.
“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear anything so strange? Oh! you need not be
afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me himself. I met him just now. He
told me it was to be a great secret; and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it
to anybody but you, but he said you knew it.”
“What did Mr. Weston tell you?” said Emma, still perplexed.
“Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill are to be
married, and that they have been privately engaged to one another this long while.
How very odd!”
It was, indeed, so odd, Harriet’s behaviour was so extremely odd, that Emma did
not know how to understand it. Her character appeared absolutely changed. She
seemed to propose showing no agitation, or disappointment, or peculiar concern in
the discovery. Emma looked at her, quite unable to speak.
“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her? You, perhaps,
might. You” (blushing as she spoke), “who can see into everybody’s heart; but
nobody else—”
“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent. Can
you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached to another woman
at the very time that I was—tacitly if not openly—encouraging you to give way to
your own feelings? I never had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr.
Frank Churchill’s having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very sure that,
if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”
“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution me? You
do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill?”
“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied Emma, smiling, “but you do not mean to deny
that there was a time—and not very distant
either—when you gave me reason to understand that you did care about him?”
“Him! never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?”
(turning away distressed).
“Harriet,” cried Emma, after a moment’s pause, “what do you mean? Good
Heaven! what do you mean? Mistake you! Am I to suppose then—?”
She could not speak another word. Her voice was lost; and she sat down, waiting
in great terror till Harriet should answer.
Harriet, who was standing at some distance and with face turned from her, did not
immediately say anything; and when she did speak, it was in a voice nearly as
agitated as Emma’s.
“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have
misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him—but considering how
infinitely superior he is to everybody else, I should not have thought it possible that I
could be supposed to mean any other person. Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not
know who would ever look at him in the company of the other. I hope I have a better
taste than to think of Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that
you should have been so mistaken, is amazing! I am sure, but for believing that you
entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I should have
considered it at first too great a presumption almost to dare to think of him. At first, if
you had not told me that more wonderful things had happened; that there had been
matches of greater disparity (those were your very words)—I should not have dared
to give way to—I should not have thought it possible; but if you, who had been
always acquainted with him—”
“Harriet,” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely, “let us understand each other
now, without the possibility of further mistake. Are you speaking of—Mr. Knightley?”
From Chapter 47
November 2004
(a) How important are social and class distinctions to the meaning and effect of the novel as a
whole?
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, giving particular attention to Austen’s
handling of dialogue.
“How much I am obliged to you,” said he, “for telling me to come today! If it had
not been for you, I should certainly have lost all the happiness of this party. I had
quite determined to go away again.”
“Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you were
too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you deserved. But you
were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come.”
“Don’t say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me.”
“It is hotter today.”
“Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable today.”
“You are comfortable because you are under command.”
“Your command? Yes.”
“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had, somehow
or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own management; but
today you are got back again—and as I cannot be always with you, it is best to
believe your temper under your own command rather than mine.”
“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a motive. You
order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always with me. You are
always with me.”
“Dating from three o’clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not begin
earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”
“Three o’clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you first in
February.”
“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But” (lowering her voice), “nobody speaks
except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking nonsense for the
entertainment of seven silent people.”
“I say nothing of which I am ashamed,” replied he, with lively impudence. “I saw
you first in February. Let everybody on the Hill hear me if they can. Let my accent
swell to Mickleham on one side, and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in
February.” And then whispering: “Our companions are excessively stupid. What
shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They shall talk. Ladies and
gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, presides) to
say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking of.”
Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great deal;
Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse’s presiding; Mr. Knightley’s
answer was the most distinct.
“Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all thinking of?”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could; “upon no account
in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt of just now. Let me hear
anything rather than what you are all thinking of. I will not say quite all. There are
one or two perhaps” (glancing at Mr. Weston and Harriet), “whose thoughts I might
not be afraid of knowing.”
“It is a sort of thing,” cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, “which I should not have thought myself privileged to inquire
into. Though, perhaps, as the chaperone of the
party—I never was in any circle—exploring parties—young ladies—married
women—”
Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply:
“Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed— quite unheard of—but some
ladies say anything. Better pass it off as a joke. Everybody knows what is due to
you.”
“It will not do,” whispered Frank to Emma, “they are most of them affronted. I will
attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss
Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of knowing exactly what you may all be
thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining from each of you, in a
general way. Here are seven of you, besides myself (who, she is pleased to say, am
very entertaining already), and she only demands from each of you, either one thing
very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated; or two things moderately
clever; or three things very dull indeed; and she engages to laugh heartily at them
all.”
“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates; “then I need not be uneasy. ‘Three things
very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull
things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I?” (looking round with the most
good-humoured dependence on everybody’s assent). “Do not you all think I shall?”
Emma could not resist.
“Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to
number—only three at once.”
Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately
catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight
blush showed that it could pain her.
“Ah! well—to be sure. Yes, I see what she means” (turning to Mr. Knightley), “and
I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not
have said such a thing to an old friend.”
Chapter 43
June 2005
(a) ‘It is his kindness and good sense that separate him from the other men in the novel.’ Discuss
the role and characterisation of Mr Knightley in the light of this comment.
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage from Emma, relating it to Austen’s
methods and concerns in the novel as a whole.
Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They talked at
first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly very warm; yet she
thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have struck her. As a sort of touchstone,
however, she began to speak of his kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and
though his answer was in the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to
indicate only his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.
‘I often feel concerned,’ said she, ‘that I dare not make our carriage more useful
on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but you know how impossible
my father would deem it that James should put-to for such a purpose.’
‘Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,’ he replied; ‘but you must
often wish it, I am sure.’ And he smiled with such seeming pleasure at the
conviction, that she must proceed another step.
‘This present from the Campbells,’ said she – ‘This pianoforté is very kindly
given.’
‘Yes,’ he replied, and without the smallest apparent embarrassment. ‘But they
would have done better had they given her notice of it. Surprises are foolish things.
The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should
have expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.’
From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had
had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were entirely free from
peculiar attachment – whether there were no actual preference – remained a little
longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane’s second song, her voice grew thick.
‘That will do,’ said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud – ‘You have sung
quite enough for one evening; now, be quiet.’
Another song, however, was soon begged for. ‘One more; they would not
fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.’ And Frank
Churchill was heard to say, ‘I think you could manage this without effort; the first part
is so very trifling. The strength of the song falls on the second.’
Mr. Knightley grew angry.
‘That fellow,’ said he, indignantly, ‘thinks of nothing but showing off his own voice.
This must not be.’ And touching Miss Bates, who at that moment passed near – ‘Miss
Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and
interfere. They have no mercy on her.’
Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to be grateful,
before she stept forward and put an end to all further singing. Here ceased the
concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse and Miss Fairfax were the only
young lady performers; but soon (within five minutes) the proposal of dancing –
originating nobody exactly knew where – was so effectually promoted by Mr. and
Mrs. Cole, that every thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs.
Weston, capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up
with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had
secured her hand, and led her up to the top.
While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off, Emma found
time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on her voice and her taste, to
look about, and see what became of Mr. Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no
dancer in general. If he were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might
augur something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs.
Cole – he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else, and
he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.
Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and she led
off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than five couple could be
mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of it made it very delightful, and she
found herself well matched in a partner. They were a couple worth looking at.
Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was growing late,
and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother’s account. After some
attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, they were obliged to thank Mrs.
Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.
‘Perhaps it is as well,’ said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to her
carriage. ‘I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing would not have
agreed with me, after yours.’
Chapter 26
November 2005
(a) ‘The novel is structured around Emma’s progress into moral and emotional maturity.’
Discuss this comment on the novel Emma.
(b) By close reference to the language and tone of the following passage from the first chapter of
Emma, discuss its significance to the novel as a whole.
Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah! my dear, I
wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for whatever you say always
comes to pass. Pray do not make any more matches.”
“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for other
people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such success you know!
Everybody said that Mr. Weston would never marry again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston,
who had been a widower so long, and who seemed so perfectly comfortable without
a wife, so constantly occupied either in his business in town or among his friends
here, always acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful – Mr. Weston need not
spend a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh, no! Mr. Weston
certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a promise to his wife
on her death-bed, and others of the son and the uncle not letting him. All manner of
solemn nonsense was talked on the subject, but I believed none of it. Ever since the
day (about four years ago) that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway-lane,
when, because it began to mizzle, he darted away with so much gallantry, and
borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the
subject. I planned the match from that hour; and when such success has blessed
me in this instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off matchmaking.”
“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success’ ” said Mr. Knightley. “Success
supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have
been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage. A worthy
employment for a young lady’s mind! But if, which I rather imagine, your making the
match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle
day, ‘I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry
her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, – why do you
talk of success? where is your merit? what are you proud of? you made a lucky
guess; and that is all that can be said.”
“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity
you. I thought you cleverer – for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck.
There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor word ‘success’, which you
quarrel with, I do not know that I am so entirely without any claim to it. You have
drawn two pretty pictures – but I think there may be a third – a something between
the do-nothing and the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s visits here, and
given many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might not
have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield enough to
comprehend that.”
“A straight-forward, open-hearted man, like Weston, and a rational unaffected
woman, like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns. You are
more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them, by interference.”
“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others;” rejoined Mr.
Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not make any more
matches, they are silly things, and break up one’s family circle grievously.”
“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr. Elton,
papa, – I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in Highbury who
deserves him – and he has been here a whole year, and has fitted up his house so
comfortably that it would be a shame to have him single any longer – and I thought
when he was joining their hands to-day, he looked so very much as if he would like
to have the same kind office done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is
the only way I have of doing him a service.”
“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man to be sure, and a very good young man,
and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any attention, my
dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will be a much better thing. I
dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to meet him.”
“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley, laughing;
“and I agree with you entirely that it will be a much better thing. Invite him to dinner,
Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken, but leave him to choose
his own wife. Depend upon it, a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of
himself.”
Chapter 1
June 2006
(a) ‘Emma’s view of Harriet is that she was not clever but she had a sweet, docile, grateful
disposition.’
Consider Harriet’s relationship with Emma in the light of this comment.
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, relating it to Austen’s methods and
concerns in the novel as a whole.
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of

young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball
of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when
a beginning is made – when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though
slightly, felt – it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury and longed to dance again; and
the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded to spend with
his daughter at Randalls was passed by the two young people in schemes on the
subject. Frank’s was the first idea, and his the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the
lady was the best judge of the difficulties and the most solicitous for accommodation
and appearance. But still she had inclination enough for showing people again how
delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced – for doing that in
which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane Fairfax – and even for simple
dancing itself, without any of the kind of wicked aids of vanity – to assist him first in
pacing out the room they were in to see what it could be made to hold, and then in
taking the dimensions of the other parlour in the hope of discovering, in spite of all
that Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little the largest.
His first proposition and request – that the dance begun at Mr. Cole’s should
be finished there, that the same party should be collected and the same musician
engaged – met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr. Weston entered into the idea
with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston most willingly undertook to play as
long as they could wish to dance; and the interesting employment had followed,
of reckoning up exactly who there would be and portioning out the indispensable
division of space to every couple.
‘You and Miss Smith and Miss Fairfax will be three, and the two Miss Coxes
five,’ had been repeated many times over. ‘And there will be the two Gilberts, young
Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley. Yes, that will be quite enough for
pleasure. You and Miss Smith and Miss Fairfax will be three, and the two Miss Coxes
five, and for five couple there will be plenty of room.’
But soon it came to be on one side: ‘But will there be good room for five couple?
I really do not think there will.’
On another: ‘And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth-while to
stand up. Five couple are nothing when one thinks seriously about it. It will not do to
invite five couple. It can be allowable only as the thought of the moment.’
Somebody said that Miss Gilbert was expected at her brother’s, and must be
invited with the rest. Somebody else believed Mrs. Gilbert would have danced the
other evening if she had been asked. A word was put in for a second young Cox; and
at last, Mr. Weston naming one family of cousins who must be included and another
of very old acquaintance who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five
couples would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what possible manner they could be disposed of.
The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. ‘Might not they use
both rooms and dance across the passage?’ It seemed the best scheme, and yet
it was not so good but that many of them wanted a better. Emma said it would
be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse
opposed it earnestly on the score of health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed,
that it could not be persevered in.
‘Oh, no,’ said he, ‘it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not bear it for
Emma! Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold. So would poor little
Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would be quite laid up; do not let them
talk of such a wild thing; pray do not let them talk of it. That young man’ (speaking
lower) ‘is very thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite the
thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening and keeping them
open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the draught. I do not mean to set you
against him, but indeed he is not quite the thing.’
Chapter 29
November 2006
(a) ‘Had she intended ever to marry him, it might have been worth while to pause and consider,
and try to understand the value of his preference, and the character of his temper.’
Discuss the significance of the relationship between Emma and Frank Churchill in the light of this
comment.
(b) Discuss the effects of the language, tone and dialogue in the following passage.
Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the
justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming
Harriet at parting, in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at
Mrs. Goddard’s for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the
happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report;
and he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of approbation
much in his favour.
After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with:
‘I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is
downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With men he can be rational
and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.’
‘Mr. Elton’s manners are not perfect,’ replied Emma; ‘but where there is a wish
to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal. Where a
man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over
negligent superiority. There is such perfect good temper and goodwill in Mr. Elton as
one cannot but value.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, ‘he seems to have a
great deal of goodwill towards you.’
Me!’ she replied with a smile of astonishment. ‘Are you imagining me to be Mr.
Elton’s object?’
‘Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never occurred to
you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.’
‘Mr. Elton in love with me! What an idea!’
‘I do not say it is so, but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and
to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I
speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you and ascertain what you do
and what you mean to do.’
‘I thank you, but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good
friends, and nothing more’; and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration
of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstance, of the
mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgement are forever falling into, and
not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant and in
want of counsel. He said no more.
Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit that in spite of the
increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward
at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage with less apparent
consciousness of the weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his
own going and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too
well wrapped up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe; and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few
flakes of snow were finding their way down, and the sky
had the appearance of being so overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce
a very white world in a very short time.
Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The
preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of his children
after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables, at least, which Mr. John Knightley
did not by any means like; he anticipated nothing in the visit that could be at all
worth the purchase; and the whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in
expressing his discontent.
Chapter 13
June 2016 (1)
(a) Emma tells Mr Knightley that ‘such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in.’
Discuss the role and characterisation of Harriet Smith in the light of this comment.
(b) Paying close attention to the language, tone and narrative techniques, discuss the following
passage, showing what it contributes to your understanding of Austen’s methods and concerns.
From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had had
no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were entirely free from peculiar
attachment — whether there were no actual preference — remained a little longer
doubtful. Towards the end of Jane’s second song, her voice grew thick.
‘That will do,’ said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud — ‘you have sung
quite enough for one evening — now, be quiet.’
Another song, however, was soon begged for. ‘One more; — they would not
fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.’ And Frank
Churchill was heard to say, ‘I think you could manage this without effort; the first part
is so very trifling. The strength of the song falls on the second.’
Mr. Knightley grew angry.
‘That fellow,’ said he, indignantly, ‘thinks of nothing but showing off his own
voice. This must not be.’ And touching Miss Bates, who at that moment passed near
— ‘Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing herself hoarse in this manner?
Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on her.’
Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to be grateful,
before she stept forward and put an end to all further singing. Here ceased the
concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse and Miss Fairfax were the only
young lady performers; but soon (within five minutes) the proposal of dancing —
originating nobody exactly knew where — was so effectually promoted by Mr. and
Mrs. Cole, that everything was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs.
Weston, capital in her country dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible
waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had
secured her hand, and led her up to the top.
While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off, Emma found
time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on her voice and her taste, to
look about, and see what became of Mr. Knightley. This would be a trial. He was
no dancer in general. If he were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it
might augur something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to
Mrs. Cole — he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else,
and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.
Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and she led
off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than five couples could
be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of it made it very delightful, and she
found herself well matched in a partner. They were a couple worth looking at.
Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was growing late,
and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother’s account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted
to begin again, they were obliged to thank
Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.
‘Perhaps it is as well,’ said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to her
carriage. ‘I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing would not have
agreed with me, after yours.’
Volume 2, Chapter 8
June 2016 (2)
(a) Mr Knightley says of Emma: ‘I am not to be talked out of my dislike of her intimacy with Harriet
Smith or my dread of its doing them both harm.’
Discuss the significance of the relationship between Harriet and Emma in the light of Mr
Knightley’s comment.
(b) Paying close attention to the details of the writing, discuss the following passage, showing what
it contributes to your understanding of Emma, Mr Elton and their relationship.
It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this — which of all her
unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be
immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence being ample encouragement
for Mr. Elton’s sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously
exclaimed —
‘Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It
confesses that you have long understood me.’
‘No, sir,’ cried Emma, ‘it confesses no such thing. So far from having long
understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views,
till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you should have been giving way
to any feelings —— Nothing could be farther from my wishes — your attachment
to my friend Harriet — your pursuit of her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great
pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed
that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought
you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have
never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith? — that you
have never thought seriously of her?’
‘Never, madam,’ cried he, affronted, in his turn: ‘never, I assure you. I think
seriously of Miss Smith! — Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be
happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there
are men who might not object to —— Everybody has their level: but as for myself,
I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal
alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith! — No, madam, my visits to
Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received ——’
‘Encouragement! — I give you encouragement! — Sir, you have been entirely
mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no
other light could you have been more to me than a common acquaintance. I am
exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake ends where it does. Had the same
behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your
views; not being aware, probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality
which you are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I trust,
will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.’
He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite
supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually deep mortification,
they had to continue together a few minutes longer, for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace.
If there had not been so much anger, there would
have been desperate awkwardness; but their straight forward emotions left no room
for the little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage turned
into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves, all at once, at the
door of his house; and he was out before another syllable passed. — Emma then felt
it indispensable to wish him a good night. The compliment was just returned, coldly
and proudly; and, under indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to
Hartfield.
Volume 1, Chapter 15
June 2016 (3)
(a) Compare and contrast the roles and characterisation of Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax.
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and narrative techniques, discuss the following
passage, showing what it contributes to your understanding of Austen’s methods and concerns.
She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that
nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she might see Mr.
Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in while she were paying her
visit. She had no objection. She would not be ashamed of the appearance of the
penitence, so justly and truly hers. Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked,
but she saw him not.
‘The ladies were all at home.’ She had never rejoiced at the sound before, nor
ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs, with any wish of giving
pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule.
There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking. She
heard Miss Bates’s voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the maid looked
frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a moment, and
then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both escaping into the
adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of, looking extremely ill; and, before
the door had shut them out, she heard Miss Bates saying, ‘Well, my dear, I shall say
you are laid down upon the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough.’
Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not quite
understand what was going on.
‘I am afraid Jane is not very well,’ said she, ‘but I do not know; they tell me she is
well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently, Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find
a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am very little able — Have you a chair, ma’am?
Do you sit where you like? I am sure she will be here presently.’
Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment’s fear of Miss Bates
keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came — ‘Very happy and obliged’ —
but Emma’s conscience told her that there was not the same cheerful volubility as
before — less ease of look and manner. A very friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she
hoped, might lead the way to a return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate.
‘Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are! — I suppose you have heard — and
are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in me — (twinkling
away a tear or two) — but it will be very trying for us to part with her, after having
had her so long, and she has a dreadful headache just now, writing all the morning:
— such long letters, you know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon.
“My dear,” said I, “you will blind yourself” — for tears were in her eyes perpetually.
One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though she is
amazingly fortunate — such a situation, I suppose, as no young woman before ever
met with on first going out — do not think us ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such
surprising good fortune — (again dispersing her tears) — but, poor dear soul! if you
were to see what a headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel any blessing quite as it may
deserve. She is as low as possible. To look
at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have secured such a
situation. You will excuse her not coming to you — she is not able — she is gone into
her own room — I want her to lie down upon the bed. “My dear,” said I, “I shall say
you are laid down upon the bed:” but, however, she is not; she is walking about the
room. But, now that she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She
will be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your kindness will
excuse her.’
Volume 3, Chapter 8
November 2016 (1)
(a)Discuss Austen’s presentation of different attitudes to social class and status in

Emma.
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and narrative methods, discuss the
following passage, showing what it contributes to Austen’s presentation of Emma.
The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and
be miserable. — It was a wretched business, indeed! — Such an overthrow of
every thing she had been wishing for! — Such a development of every thing most
unwelcome! — Such a blow for Harriet! — That was the worst of all. Every part of it
brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or other; but, compared with the evil to
Harriet, all was light; and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken
— more in error — more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could
the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.
‘If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have born any thing.
He might have doubled his presumption to me — But poor Harriet!’
How she could have been so deceived! — He protested that he had never
thought seriously of Harriet — never! She looked back as well as she could; but it
was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made every thing
bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or
she could not have been so misled.
The picture! — How eager he had been about the picture! — and the charade!
— and an hundred other circumstances; — how clearly they had seemed to point
to Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready wit” — but then, the “soft eyes” —
in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen
through such thick-headed nonsense?
Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to herself
unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere error of judgment,
of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others that he had not always lived
in the best society, that with all the gentleness of his address, true elegance was
sometimes wanting; but, till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it
to mean any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.
To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the subject,
for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying that those brothers had
penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley had once said to her about
Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton
would never marry indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge
of his character had been there shown than any she had reached herself. It was
dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many respects, the very
reverse of what she had meant and believed him; proud, assuming, conceited;
very full of his own claims, and little concerned about the feelings of others.
Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his addresses
to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his proposals did him no
service. She thought nothing of his attachment, and was insulted by his hopes. He
wanted to marry well, and having the arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended
to be in love; but she was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be cared for. There had
been no real affection either in his language or
manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could hardly
devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less allied with real love.
She need not trouble herself to pity him. He only wanted to aggrandize and enrich
himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds,
were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss
Somebody else with twenty, or with ten.
November 2016 (2)
(a) Emma says to Harriet: ‘I could not have visited Mrs Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill
Farm.’
In the light of this comment discuss the significance of social class and status in the
novel Emma.
(b) Paying close attention to Austen’s methods of characterisation, discuss the following
passage, showing what it contributes to your understanding of Mr Knightley’s role in
the novel.
Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not only a
very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it as the
elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived about a mile from Highbury, was a
frequent visitor and always welcome, and at this time more welcome than usual, as
coming directly from their mutual connections in London. He had returned to a late
dinner after some days absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were
well in Brunswick-square. It was a happy circumstance and animated Mr. Woodhouse
for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner which always did him good;
and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and her children were answered most
satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr. Woodhouse gratefully observed,
“It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley, to come out at this late hour to call upon us.
I am afraid you must have had a shocking walk.”
“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful, moonlight night; and so mild that I must draw
back from your great fire.”
“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not catch cold.”
“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”
“Well! that is quite surprizing, for we have had a vast deal of rain here. It rained
dreadfully hard for half an hour, while we were at breakfast. I wanted them to put off
the wedding.”
“By the bye — I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what sort of
joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my congratulations. But I
hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you all behave? Who cried most?”
“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ’tis a sad business.”
“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say ‘poor
Miss Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it comes to the
question of dependence or independence! — At any rate, it must be better to have
only one to please, than two.”
“Especially when one of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome creature!”
said Emma playfully. “That, is what you have in your head, I know — and what you
would certainly say if my father were not by.”
“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse with a sigh. “I am
afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”
“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean you, or suppose Mr. Knightley
to mean you. What a horrible idea! Oh, no! I meant only myself. Mr. Knightley loves
to find fault with me you know — in a joke — it is all a joke. We always say what we
like to one another.” Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma
Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and though this was not
particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so much less so to her
father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not
being thought perfect by every body.
Volume 1, Chapter 1
June 2017 (1)
(a) Frank Churchill is described as ‘a disgrace to the name of man’.

Discuss the role and characterisation of Frank Churchill in the light of this comment.
(b) Paying close attention to the effects of the writing, discuss the following passage and
show what it contributes to your understanding of Austen’s methods and concerns.
Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and Mrs. Weston’s
visit this morning was in another respect particularly opportune. Something occurred
while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma want their advice; and, which was still
more lucky, she wanted exactly the advice they gave.
This was the occurrence: — The Coles had been settled some years in Highbury,
and were very good sort of people — friendly, liberal, and unpretending; but, on the
other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel. On their
first coming into the country, they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly,
keeping little company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had
brought them a considerable increase of means — the house in town had yielded
greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With their wealth, their
views increased; their want of a larger house, their inclination for more company.
They added to their house, to their number of servants, to their expenses of every
sort; and by this time were, in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at
Hartfield. Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body for
their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the single men, had
already taken place. The regular and best families Emma could hardly suppose they
would presume to invite — neither Donwell, nor Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing
should tempt her to go, if they did; and she regretted that her father’s known habits
would be giving her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very
respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not for them to
arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them. This lesson, she
very much feared, they would receive only from herself; she had little hope of Mr.
Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.
But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks
before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her very differently
affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their invitation, and none had come for
her father and herself; and Mrs. Weston’s accounting for it with “I suppose they will
not take the liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,” was not quite sufficient.
She felt that she should like to have had the power of refusal; and afterwards, as
the idea of the party to be assembled there, consisting precisely of those whose
society was dearest to her, occurred again and again, she did not know that she
might not have been tempted to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and
the Bateses. They had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day
before, and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might not the
evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare possibility of it acted
as a further irritation on her spirits; and her being left in solitary grandeur, even
supposing the omission to be intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.
It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at Hartfield,
which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first remark, on reading it,
was that “of course it must be declined,” she so very soon proceeded to ask them
what they advised her to do, that their advice for her going was most prompt and
successful.
Volume 2, Chapter 7
June 2017 (2)
(a) A critic has said that Mr Knightley is ‘too dull and severe to be a fit husband for
Emma Woodhouse’.
In the light of this comment, discuss Austen’s presentation of the role and
characterisation of Mr Knightley.
“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that Mrs.
Churchill, as we understand, has not been able to leave the sofa for a week
together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he said, of being too weak to get
into her conservatory without having both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know,
speaks a great degree of weakness — but now she is so impatient to be in town, that
she means to sleep only two nights on the road. — So Frank writes word. Certainly,
delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me
that.”
“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex.
I do indeed. I give you notice — You will find me a formidable antagonist on that
point. I always stand up for women — and I assure you, if you knew how Selina
feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill’s
making incredible exertions to avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her — and I
believe I have caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets;
an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?”
“Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine lady ever
did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land for” —
Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with,
“Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure you. Do not
run away with such an idea.”
“Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough a fine
lady as any body ever beheld.”
Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly. It
was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was not a fine lady;
perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of it; — and she was considering in
what way she had best retract, when Mr. Weston went on.
“Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect — but this is
quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and therefore I would not speak
ill of her. Besides, she is out of health now; but that indeed, by her own account, she
has always been. I would not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much
faith in Mrs. Churchill’s illness.”
“If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston? — To Bath, or to Clifton?”
“She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for her. The fact is, I
suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now been a longer time stationary
there, than she ever was before, and she begins to want change. It is a retired place.
A fine place, but very retired.”
“Aye — like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from the
road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all around it! You seem shut out
from every thing — in the most complete retirement. — And Mrs. Churchill probably
has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she
may not have resources enough in herself to be qualified for a country life. I always
say a woman cannot have too many resources — and I feel very thankful that I have
so many myself as to be quite independent of society.”
“Frank was here in February for a fortnight.”
“So I remember to have heard. He will find an addition to the society of
Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call myself an addition.
But perhaps he may never have heard of there being such a creature in the world.”
This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr. Weston, with
a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,
“My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible. Not
heard of you! — I believe Mrs. Weston’s letters lately have been full of very little else
than Mrs. Elton.”
He had done his duty and could return to his son.
June 2017 (3)
(a) What, in your view, is the significance of the relationship between Frank Churchill
and Jane Fairfax to the novel’s meaning and effects?
After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with
Mr. Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers,
and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed
little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which
nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits
which would have made her prefer being silent.
Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to
leave them early the next day; and he soon began with —
“Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the
boys; but you have your sister’s letter, and every thing is down at full length
there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than her’s,
and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to recommend
being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic them.”
“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma, “for I shall do all in
my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and
happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”
“And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again.”
“That is very likely. You think so, do not you?”
“I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father — or
even may be some incumbrance to you, if your visiting-engagements
continue to increase as much as they have done lately.”
“Increase!”
“Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half year has made a
great difference in your way of life.”
“Difference! No indeed I am not.”
“There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with
company than you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come
down for only one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party! — When
did it happen before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing,
and you mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought
an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole’s, or balls at the Crown.
The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your goings-on, is
very great.”
“Yes,” said his brother quickly, “it is Randalls that does it all.”
“Very well — and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less
influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that
Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg
you to send them home.”
“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them
be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”
“Upon my word,” exclaimed Emma, “you amuse me! I should like to
know how many of all my numerous engagements take place without your
being of the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting
leisure to attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine
— what have they been? Dining once with the Coles — and having a ball
talked of, which never took place. I can understand you — (nodding at
Mr. John Knightley) — your good fortune in meeting with so many of your
friends at once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you,
(turning to Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two
hours from Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation
for me, I cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that
if aunt Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much
better with uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours
when she is absent one — and who, when he is at home, is either reading
to himself or settling his accounts.”
Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without
difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton’s beginning to talk to him.
November 2017 (1)
(a) ‘Austen suggests marriage is a business arrangement for money or status.’

In the light of this comment, discuss Austen’s presentation of marriage in the novel.
“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at
Weymouth.”
“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very
unfair one. It is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree of acquaintance.
Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. — I shall not commit myself by
claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”
“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her
account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so
very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you
may say what you like of your acquaintance with her.”
“May I indeed? — Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I
met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at
Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Col. Campbell is a very agreeable
man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”
“You know Miss Fairfax’s situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be.”
“Yes — (rather hesitatingly) — I believe I do.”
“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling, “remember
that I am here. — Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of
Miss Fairfax’s situation in life. I will move a little farther off.”
“I certainly do forget to think of her,” said Emma, “as having ever been any thing
but my friend and my dearest friend.”
He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.
When the gloves were bought and they had quitted the shop again, “Did you
ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank Churchill.
“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to Highbury.
I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. She plays charmingly.”
“You think so, do you? — I wanted the opinion of some one who could really
judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with considerable taste, but I know
nothing of the matter myself. — I am excessively fond of music, but without the
smallest skill or right of judging of any body’s performance. — I have been used to
hear her’s admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well: — a
man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman — engaged to her — on
the point of marriage — would yet never ask that other woman to sit down to the
instrument, if the lady in question could sit down instead — never seemed to like to
hear one if he could hear the other. That I thought, in a man of known musical talent,
was some proof.”
“Proof, indeed!” said Emma, highly amused. — “Mr. Dixon is very musical, is
he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, than Miss Fairfax
would have vouchsafed in half a year.”
“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a very
strong proof.”
“Certainly — very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger than,
if I had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable to me. I could
not excuse a man’s having more music than love — more ear than eye — a more
acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. How did Miss Campbell appear
to like it?”
“It was her very particular friend, you know.”
“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger
preferred than one’s very particular friend — with a stranger it might not recur
again — but the misery of having a very particular friend always at hand, to do every
thing better than one does oneself! — Poor Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone
to settle in Ireland.”
Volume 2, Chapter 6
November 2017 (2)
(a) Discuss Austen’s presentation of different attitudes to marriage in the novel.
A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move. — “He must be going. He
had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for Mrs. Weston
at Ford’s; but he need not hurry any body else.” His son, too well bred to hear the
hint, rose immediately also, saying,
“As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity of paying
a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore may as well be paid
now. I have the honour of being acquainted with a neighbour of yours, (turning to
Emma,) a lady residing in or near Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall
have no difficulty, I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not the
proper name — I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any family of that
name?”
“To be sure we do,” cried his father; “Mrs. Bates — we passed her house — I
saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted with Miss Fairfax; I
remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl she is. Call upon her, by all
means.”
“There is no necessity for my calling this morning,” said the young man; “another
day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance at Weymouth
which” —
“Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done cannot be
done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank; any want of attention to
her here should be carefully avoided. You saw her with the Campbells when she was
the equal of every body she mixed with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother,
who has barely enough to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.”
The son looked convinced.
“I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,” said Emma, “she is a very elegant
young woman.”
He agreed to it, but with so quiet a “Yes,” as inclined her almost to doubt his
real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort of elegance for the
fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought only ordinarily gifted with it.
“If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,” said she, “I think
you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and hear her — no, I am afraid
you will not hear her at all, for she has an aunt who never holds her tongue.”
“You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?” said Mr. Woodhouse,
always the last to make his way in conversation; “then give me leave to assure you
that you will find her a very agreeable young lady. She is staying here on a visit to
her grandmamma and aunt, very worthy people; I have known them all my life. They
will be extremely glad to see you, I am sure, and one of my servants shall go with
you to shew you the way.”
“My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.”
“But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown, quite on
the other side of the street, and there are a great many houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty
walk, unless you keep on the foot-path; but my
coachman can tell you where you had best cross the street.”
Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could, and his father
gave his hearty support by calling out, “My good friend, this is quite unnecessary;
Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees it, and as to Mrs. Bates’s, he may get
there from the Crown in a hop, step, and jump.”
They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a
graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained very
well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now engage to think
of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full confidence in their comfort.
Volume 2, Chapter 5
November 2017 (3)
(a) ‘Austen suggests marriage is a business arrangement for money or status.’

In the light of this comment, discuss Austen’s presentation of marriage in the novel.
“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at
Weymouth.”
“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very
unfair one. It is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree of acquaintance.
Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. — I shall not commit myself by
claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”
“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her
account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so
very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you
may say what you like of your acquaintance with her.”
“May I indeed? — Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I
met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at
Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Col. Campbell is a very agreeable
man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”
“You know Miss Fairfax’s situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be.”
“Yes — (rather hesitatingly) — I believe I do.”
“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling, “remember
that I am here. — Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of
Miss Fairfax’s situation in life. I will move a little farther off.”
“I certainly do forget to think of her,” said Emma, “as having ever been any thing
but my friend and my dearest friend.”
He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.
When the gloves were bought and they had quitted the shop again, “Did you
ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank Churchill.
“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to Highbury.
I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. She plays charmingly.”
“You think so, do you? — I wanted the opinion of some one who could really
judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with considerable taste, but I know
nothing of the matter myself. — I am excessively fond of music, but without the
smallest skill or right of judging of any body’s performance. — I have been used to
hear her’s admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well: — a
man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman — engaged to her — on
the point of marriage — would yet never ask that other woman to sit down to the
instrument, if the lady in question could sit down instead — never seemed to like to
hear one if he could hear the other. That I thought, in a man of known musical talent,
“Proof, indeed!” said Emma, highly amused. — “Mr. Dixon is very musical, is
he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, than Miss Fairfax
would have vouchsafed in half a year.”
“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a very
strong proof.”
“Certainly — very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger than,
if I had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable to me. I could
not excuse a man’s having more music than love — more ear than eye — a more
acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. How did Miss Campbell appear
to like it?”
“It was her very particular friend, you know.”
“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger
preferred than one’s very particular friend — with a stranger it might not recur
again — but the misery of having a very particular friend always at hand, to do every
thing better than one does oneself! — Poor Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone
to settle in Ireland.”
Volume 2, Chapter 6
Measure 4 Measure
June 2006
(a) ‘The old fantastical duke of dark corners.’

What is your view of the role and characterisation of the Duke in Measure for
Measure?
(b) What might be the thoughts and feelings of an audience as the following passage
unfolds?
Scene I. A hall in Angelo’s house.

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST,
Officers, and other Attendants.
Angelo: We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, 5
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.
Escalus: Ay, but yet
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little
Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman, 10
Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
Let but your honour know,
Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher’d with place, or place with wishing, 15
Or that the resolute acting of our blood
Could have attain’d th’ effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err’d in this point which now you censure him,
And pull’d the law upon you. 20
Angelo: ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny
The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice, 25
That justice seizes. What knows the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take ’t,
Because we see it; but what we do not see
We tread upon, and never think of it. 30
You may not so extenuate his offence
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die. 35
Escalus: Be it as your wisdom will.
Angelo: Where is the Provost?
Provost: Here, if it like your honour.
Angelo: See that Claudio
Be executed by nine to-morrow morning; 40
Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar’d;
For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.
[Exit PROVOST.
Escalus: [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! And forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;
Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,
And some condemned for a fault alone,
Enter ELBOW and Officers with FROTH and POMPEY.
Elbow: Come, bring them away; if these be good people in
a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in
common houses, I know no law; bring them away.
Angelo: How now, sir! What’s your name, and what’s the matter?
Act 2, Scene 1
November 2006
(a) ‘… What’s open made to justice, That justice seizes.’

How ‘just’ do you find the play, Measure for Measure?
(b) With close attention to the language, tone and imagery, discuss what you learn
about Angelo at this point in the play.
Enter Angelo.
Angelo: When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name,
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
Is, like a good thing being often read,
Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein – let no man hear me – I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume
Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.
Let's write ‘good angel’ on the devil’s horn;
’Tis not the devil’s crest.
Enter Servant.
How now, who’s there?
Servant: One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
Angelo: Teach her the way. [Exit Servant]
Oh heavens!
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive; and even so
The general subject to a well-wish’d king
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.
Enter Isabella.
How now, fair maid?
Isabella: I am come to know your pleasure.
Angelo: That you might know it would much better please me
Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.
Isabella: Even so! Heaven keep your honour!
Angelo: Yet may he live awhile, and, it may be.
As long as you or I; yet he must die.
Act 2, Scene 4
June 2007
(a) ‘I partly think

A due sincerity governed his deeds
Till he did look on me.’
How ‘sincere’ do you find Angelo in Measure for Measure?
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, commenting in particular on its
dramatic importance in the play.
Lucio: What news, friar, of the Duke?

Duke: I know none. Can you tell me of any?
Lucio: Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in
Rome; but where is he, think you?
Duke: I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
Lucio: It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state and
usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it
well in his absence; he puts transgression to’t.
Duke: He does well in’t.
Lucio: A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him. Something
too crabbed that way, friar.
Duke: It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
Lucio: Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied;
but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking
be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and
woman after this downright way of creation. Is it true, think you?
Duke: How should he be made, then?
Lucio: Some report a sea-maid spawn’d him; some, that he was begot
between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes
water his urine is congeal’d ice; that I know to be true. And he is a
motion generative; that’s infallible.
Duke: You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
Lucio: Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a
codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that is
absent have done this? Ere he would have hang’d a man for the
getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a
thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service,
and that instructed him to mercy.
Duke: I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was
not inclin’d that way.
Lucio: O, sir, you are deceiv’d.
Duke: ’Tis not possible.
Lucio: Who—not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to
put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in him. He
would be drunk too; that let me inform you.
Duke: You do him wrong, surely.
Lucio: Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and I
believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
Duke: What, I prithee, might be the cause?
Lucio: No, pardon; ’tis a secret must be lock’d within the teeth and the
lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file of the subject
held the Duke to be wise.
Duke: Wise? Why, no question but he was.
Lucio: A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
Act 3, Scene 2
November 2007
(a) Lucio refers to “The wanton stings and motions of the sense”.
Consider the presentation of sexual desire in Measure for Measure.
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, commenting in particular on

how it contributes to your understanding of Isabella and Claudio.
Isabella: O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Claudio: Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flow’ry tenderness? If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride
And hug it in mine arms.
Isabella: There spake my brother; there my father’s grave
Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i’ th’ head, and follies doth enew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
Claudio: The precise Angelo!
Isabella: O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell
The damned’st body to invest and cover
In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity
Thou mightst be freed?
Claudio: O heavens! it cannot be.
Isabella: Yes, he would give’t thee, from this rank offence,
So to offend him still. This night’s the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,
Or else thou diest tomorrow.
Claudio: Thou shalt not do’t.
Isabella: O, were it but my life!
I’d throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.
Claudio: Thanks, dear Isabel.
Isabella: Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
Claudio: Yes. Has he affections in him
That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose
When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;
Or of the deadly seven it is the least.
Isabella: Which is the least?
Claudio: If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fin’d? –O Isabel!
Isabella: What says my brother?
Claudio: Death is a fearful thing.
Isabella: And shamed life a hateful.
Claudio: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence around about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling – ’tis too horrible.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Isabella: Alas, alas!
Claudio: Sweet sister, let me live.
Act 3, Scene 1
June 2008
(a) Discuss Shakespeare’s use of deception and disguise in Measure for Measure.
(b) How satisfying as the ending to the play do you find the following passage? You
should pay attention to the language and tone in your answer.
Provost: This is another prisoner that I sav’d,

Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
[Unmuffles Claudio.
Duke: [To Isabella] If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardon’d; and for your lovely sake,
Give me your hand and say you will be mine,
He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.
By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe;
Methinks I see a quick’ning in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself;
And yet here’s one in place I cannot pardon.
[To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
One all of luxury, an ass, a madman!
Wherein have I so deserv’d of you
That you extol me thus?
Lucio: Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick. If you will
hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would please you I
might be whipt.
Duke: Whipt first, sir, and hang’d after.
Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
If any woman wrong’d by this lewd fellow –
As I have heard him swear himself there’s one
Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish’d,
Let him be whipt and hang’d.
Lucio: I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your
Highness said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do
not recompense me in making me a cuckold.
Duke: Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;
And see our pleasure herein executed.
Lucio: Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and
hanging.
Duke: Slandering a prince deserves it.
[Exeunt Officers with Lucio.
She, Claudio, that you wrong’d, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo;
I have confess’d her, and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;
There’s more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s:
Th’ offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline,
What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace, where we’ll show
What’s yet behind that’s meet you all should know.
[Exeunt.
Act 5, Scene 1
November 2008
(a) Discuss Shakespeare’s presentation of women in Measure for Measure.
(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, commenting in particular on

what it reveals about the low life characters and their role in the play.
Mistress Overdone: Well, well! there’s one yonder arrested and carried to prison
was worth five thousand of you all.
1st Gentleman: Who’s that, I pray thee?
Mistress Overdone: Marry, sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.
1st Gentleman: Claudio to prison? ’Tis not so.
Mistress Overdone: Nay, but I know ’tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried
away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to
be chopp’d off.
Lucio: But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of
this?
Mistress Overdone: I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam Julietta with
child.
Lucio: Believe me, this may be; he promis’d to meet me two hours
since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.
2nd Gentleman: Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we
had to such a purpose.
1st Gentleman: But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.
Lucio: Away; let’s go learn the truth of it.
[Exeunt Lucio and Gentlemen.
Mistress Overdone: Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the
gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.
Enter POMPEY.
How now! what’s the news with you?
Pompey: Yonder man is carried to prison.
Mistress Overdone: Well, what has he done?
Pompey: A woman.
Mistress Overdone: But what’s his offence?
Pompey: Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
Mistress Overdone: What! is there a maid with child by him?
Pompey: No; but there’s a woman with maid by him. You have not heard
of the proclamation, have you?
Mistress Overdone: What proclamation, man?
Pompey: All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck’d down.
Mistress Overdone: And what shall become of those in the city?
Pompey: They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that a
wise burgher put in for them.
Mistress Overdone: But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull’d
down?
Pompey: To the ground, mistress.
Mistress Overdone: Why, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth! What
shall become of me?
Pompey: Come, fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients. Though
you change your place you need not change your trade; I’ll be
your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you; you
that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be
considered.
Mistress Overdone: What’s to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let’s withdraw.
Pompey: Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison; and
there’s Madam Juliet. [Exeunt.
Act 1, Scene 2
June 2016 (1)
(a) ‘There are doubts about his morals and his leadership.’
How far and in what ways do you agree with this comment on the Duke?
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and action, discuss the following passage,
showing its significance to the play as a whole.
Lucio: Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.

Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.
Isabella: Woe me! For what?
Lucio: For that which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.
Isabella: Sir, make me not your story.
Lucio: It is true.
I would not – though ’tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart – play with all virgins so:
I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk’d with in sincerity,
As with a saint.
Isabella: You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
Lucio: Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:
Your brother and his lover have embrac’d.
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
Isabella: Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
Lucio: Is she your cousin?
Isabella: Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
By vain though apt affection.
Lucio: She it is.
Isabella: O, let him marry her!
Lucio: This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings-out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth, one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He – to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions – hath pick’d out an act
Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life
Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigour of the statute
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo. And that’s my pith of business
’Twixt you and your poor brother.
Isabella: Doth he so seek his life?
Lucio: Has censur’d him
Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath
A warrant for his execution.
Isabella: Alas! what poor ability’s in me
To do him good?
Lucio: Assay the pow’r you have.
Isabella: My power, alas, I doubt!
Lucio: Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
Isabella: I’ll see what I can do.
Lucio: But speedily.
Isabella: I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the Mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
Commend me to my brother; soon at night
I’ll send him certain word of my success.
Act 1, Scene 4
June 2016 (2)
(a) Discuss some of the dramatic effects created by Shakespeare’s use of deception
and disguise in Measure for Measure.
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and dramatic action, discuss the following
passage, showing what it contributes to your understanding of Angelo.
Angelo: Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Isabella: Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
That skins the vice o’ th’ top. Go to your bosom,
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother’s life.
Angelo [Aside]: She speaks, and ’tis
Such sense that my sense breeds with it. –
Fare you well.
Isabella: Gentle my lord, turn back.
Angelo: I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.
Isabella: Hark how I’ll bribe you; good, my lord, turn back.
Angelo: How, bribe me?
Isabella: Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
Lucio [To ISABELLA]: You had marr’d all else.
Isabella: Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,
Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
Angelo: Well; come to me to-morrow.
Lucio [To ISABELLA]: Go to; ’tis well; away.
Isabella: Heaven keep your honour safe!
Angelo [Aside]: Amen; for I
Am that way going to temptation
Where prayers cross.
Isabella: At what hour to-morrow
Shall I attend your lordship?
Angelo: At any time ’fore noon.
Isabella: Save your honour!
[Exeunt all but ANGELO.
Angelo: From thee; even from thy virtue!
What’s this, what’s this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flow’r,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Ever till now,
When men were fond, I smil’d and wond’red how.
[Exit.
Act 2, Scene 2
June 2016 (3)
(a) What, in your view, does the Duke’s disguise as a friar contribute to the play’s
meaning and effects?
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and dramatic action, consider what might
be the thoughts and feelings of an audience as the following passage unfolds.
Angelo: I think it well;

And from this testimony of your own sex,
Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.
I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none;
If you be one, as you are well express’d
By all external warrants, show it now
By putting on the destin’d livery.
Isabella: I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,
Let me intreat you speak the former language.
Angelo: Plainly conceive, I love you.
Isabella: My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for’t.
Angelo: He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
Isabella: I know your virtue hath a license in’t,
Which seems a little fouler than it is,
To pluck on others.
Angelo: Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.
Isabella: Ha! little honour to be much believ’d,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for’t.
Sign me a present pardon for my brother
Or, with an outstretch’d throat, I’ll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
Angelo: Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoil’d name, th’ austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i’ th’ state,
Will so your accusation overweigh
That you shall stifle in your own report,
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can: my false o’erweighs your true.
[Exit.
Isabella: To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue
Either of condemnation or approof,
Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;
Hooking both right and wrong to th’ appetite,
To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother.
Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr’d pollution.
Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.
[Exit.
Act 2, Scene 4
November 2016 (1)
(a) Discuss the significance of Shakespeare’s presentation of different attitudes to

justice in Measure for Measure.
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and action, consider what might be the
thoughts and feelings of an audience as the following passage unfolds.
Angelo: What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?
Lucio: ’Tis he, my lord. Come hither, good-man bald-pate. Do you
know me?
Duke: I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you
at the prison, in the absence of the Duke.
Lucio: O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the
Duke?
Duke: Most notedly, sir.
Lucio: Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool,
and a coward, as you then reported him to be?
Duke: You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that
my report; you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more,
much worse.
Lucio: O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose
for thy speeches?
Duke: I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.
Angelo: Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable
abuses!
Escalus: Such a fellow is not to be talk’d withal. Away with him to
prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison!
Lay bolts enough upon him; let him speak no more. Away
with those giglets too, and with the other confederate
companion!
[The PROVOST lays hands on the DUKE.
Duke: Stay, sir; stay awhile.
Angelo: What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.
Lucio: Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you baldpated
lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show
your knave’s visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheepbiting
face, and be hang’d an hour! Will’t not off?
[Pulls off the friar’s hood, and discovers the DUKE.
Duke: Thou art the first knave that e’er mad’st a duke.
First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.
[To LUCIO] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you
Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.
Lucio: This may prove worse than hanging.
Duke [To ESCALUS]: What you have spoke I pardon; sit you
down.
We’ll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave.
Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,
That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
And hold no longer out.
Angelo: O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your Grace, like pow’r divine,
Hath look’d upon my passes. Then, good Prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession;
Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
Is all the grace I beg.
Act 5, Scene 1
November 2016 (2)
(a) Angelo: What’s open made to justice,

That justice seizes.
With Angelo’s comment in mind, discuss Shakespeare’s presentation of justice in
the play.
showing its significance to the play as a whole.
[The city gate.

Enter at several doors DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords;
ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, PROVOST, Officers,
and Citizens.]
Duke: My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
Angelo, Escalus: Happy return to be your royal Grace!
Duke: Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made inquiry of you, and we hear
Such goodness of your justice that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.
Angelo: You make my bonds still greater.
Duke: O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
You must walk by us on our other hand;
And good supporters are you.
[Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA.]
Friar Peter: Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before
him.
Isabella: Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong’d – I would fain have said a maid!
O worthy Prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint,
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.
Duke: Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice;
Reveal yourself to him.
Isabella: O worthy Duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil!
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believ’d,
Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me,
here!
Angelo: My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm;
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,
Cut off by course of justice –
Isabella: By course of justice!
Angelo: And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
Isabella: Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak.
That Angelo’s forsworn, is it not strange?
That Angelo’s a murderer, is’t not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
Is it not strange and strange?
Duke: Nay, it is ten times strange.
Isabella: It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange;
Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To th’ end of reck’ning.
Duke: Away with her. Poor soul,
She speaks this in th’ infirmity of sense.
Isabella: O Prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ’st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not with that opinion
That I am touch’d with madness. Make not
impossible
That which but seems unlike: ’tis not impossible
But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal Prince,
If he be less, he’s nothing; but he’s more,
Had I more name for badness.
Act 5, Scene 1
June 2017 (1)
(a) Isabella: More than our brother is our chastity.

In the light of her comment, discuss the characterisation and role of Isabella.
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and action, discuss the following passage
and its significance in the play.
Duke: There is our commission.

From which we would not have you warp.
Call hither,
I say, bid come before us Angelo.
[Exit an ATTENDANT.
What figure of us think you he will bear?
For you must know we have with special soul
Elected him our absence to supply;
Lent him our terror, dress’d him with our love,
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power. What think you of it?
Escalus: If any in Vienna be of worth
To undergo such ample grace and honour,
It is Lord Angelo.
[Enter ANGELO.]
Duke: Look where he comes.
Angelo: Always obedient to your Grace’s will,
I come to know your pleasure.
Duke: Angelo,
There is a kind of character in thy life
That to th’ observer doth thy history
Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d
But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
To one that can my part in him advertise.
Hold, therefore, Angelo –
In our remove be thou at full ourself;
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,
Though first in question, is thy secondary.
Take thy commission.
Angelo: Now, good my lord,
Let there be some more test made of my metal,
Before so noble and so great a figure
Be stamp’d upon it.
Duke: No more evasion!
We have with a leaven’d and prepared choice
Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion’d
Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,
As time and our concernings shall importune,
How it goes with us, and do look to know
What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.
To th’ hopeful execution do I leave you
Of your commissions.
Angelo: Yet give leave, my lord,
That we may bring you something on the way.
Duke: My haste may not admit it;
Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
With any scruple: your scope is as mine own,
So to enforce or qualify the laws
As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
I’ll privily away. I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes;
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
Angelo: The heavens give safety to your purposes!
Escalus: Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!
Duke: I thank you. Fare you well.
Act 1, Scene 1
June 2017 (2)
(a) Claudio: This day my sister should the cloister enter.

What does Isabella’s religious faith and intention to become a nun contribute to the
play’s meanings and effects?
and show what it contributes to your understanding of Lucio and the Duke.
Lucio: It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state
and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo
dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to’t.
Duke: He does well in’t.
Lucio: A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him.
Something too crabbed that way, friar.
Duke: It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
Lucio: Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well
allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and
drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made
by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it
true, think you?
Duke: How should he be made, then?
Lucio: Some report a sea-maid spawn’d him; some, that he was
begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when
he makes water his urine is congeal’d ice; that I know to be
true. And he is a motion generative; that’s infallible.
Duke: You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
Lucio: Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a
codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that
is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang’d a man
for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for
the nursing a thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he
knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
Duke: I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he
was not inclin’d that way.
Lucio: O, sir, you are deceiv’d.
Duke: ’Tis not possible.
Lucio: Who – not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use
was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets
in him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.
Duke: You do him wrong, surely.
Lucio: Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and I
believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
Duke: What, I prithee, might be the cause?
Lucio: No, pardon; ’tis a secret must be lock’d within the teeth and
the lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file of
the subject held the Duke to be wise.
Duke: Wise? Why, no question but he was.
Lucio: A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
Duke: Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very stream
of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a
warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him
be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall
appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier.
Therefore you speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be
more, it is much dark’ned in your malice.
Lucio: Sir, I know him, and I love him.
Duke: Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer
love.
Lucio: Come, sir, I know what I know.
Duke: I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you
speak. But, if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he
may, let me desire you to make your answer before him. If it
be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it; I
am bound to call upon you; and I pray you your name?
Lucio: Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.
Duke: He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
Act 3, Scene 2
June 2017 (3)
(a) Compare and contrast the roles and characterisation of Lucio and Claudio.
and its significance in the play.
Duke: I do make myself believe that you may most

uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit;
redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to
your own gracious person; and much please the absent
Duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have
hearing of this business.
Isabella: Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do
anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
Duke: Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you
not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the
great soldier who miscarried at sea?
Isabella: I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her
name.
Duke: She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to
her by oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which
time of the contract and limit of the solemnity her brother
Frederick was wreck’d at sea, having in that perished
vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this
befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble
and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most
kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her
fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate
husband, this well-seeming Angelo.
Isabella: Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?
Duke: Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with
his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in
her discoveries of dishonour; in few, bestow’d her on
her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake;
and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but
relents not.
Isabella: What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from
the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this
man live! But how out of this can she avail?
Duke: It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure
of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from
dishonour in doing it.
Isabella: Show me how, good father.
Duke: This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance
of her first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all
reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an
impediment in the current, made it more violent and
unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a
plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the
point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that
your stay with him may not be long; that the time may
have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer
to convenience. This being granted in course – and now
follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead
up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter
acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her
recompense; and here, by this, is your brother saved,
your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged,
and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame
and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry
this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends
the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?
Isabella: The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it
will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
Duke: It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to
Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give
him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint
Luke’s; there, at the moated grange, resides this
dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me; and
dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.
Isabella: I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
[Exeunt severally.
Act 3, Scene 1
November 2017 (1)
(a) The Duke describes Angelo as ‘a man of stricture and firm abstinence’.
How far and in what ways does Shakespeare’s presentation of Angelo support the
Duke’s comment?
showing what it contributes to your understanding of Claudio and Isabella.
Isabella: Yes, brother, you may live:

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you’ll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.
Claudio: Perpetual durance?
Isabella: Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
Though all the world’s vastidity you had,
To a determin’d scope.
Claudio: But in what nature?
Isabella: In such a one as, you consenting to’t,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
And leave you naked.
Claudio: Let me know the point.
Or else thou diest to-morrow.
Isabella: Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
Be perdurably fin’d? – O Isabel!
And blown with restless violence round about
Act 3, Scene 1
November 2017 (2)
(a) Angelo: I crave death more willingly than mercy,

Tis my deserving and I do entreat it.
How far does Shakespeare’s presentation of Angelo demonstrate that he gets what
he deserves at the end of the play?
(b) Paying close attention to language, tone and action, consider what might be the
thoughts and feelings of an audience as the following passage unfolds.
Claudio: Sweet sister, let me live.

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.
Isabella: O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is’t not a kind of incest to take life
From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother play’d my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne’er issu’d from his blood. Take my defiance;
Die; perish. Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
Claudio: Nay, hear me, Isabel.
Isabella: O fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;
’Tis best that thou diest quickly.
Claudio: O hear me, Isabella.
[Re-enter DUKE.]
Duke: Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
Isabella: What is your will?
Duke: Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by
have some speech with you; the satisfaction I would
require is likewise your own benefit.
Isabella: I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out
of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile. [Walks apart.
Duke: Son, I have overheard what hath pass’d between you and
your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her;
only he hath made an assay of her virtue to practise his
judgment with the disposition of natures. She, having the
truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial
which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo,
and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to
death. Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are
fallible; to-morrow you must die; go to your knees and
made ready.
Claudio: Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life
that I will sue to be rid of it.
Duke: Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO]
Provost, a word with you.
[Re-enter PROVOST.]
Provost: What’s your will, father?
Duke: That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a
while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no
loss shall touch her by my company.
Provost: In good time. [Exit PROVOST.
Duke: The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good;
the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty
brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your
complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault
that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath convey’d to
my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for
his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to
content this substitute, and to save your brother?
Isabella: I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother die
by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O,
how much is the good Duke deceiv’d in Angelo! If ever he
return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain,
or discover his government.
Act 3, Scene 1
November 2017 (3)
(a) The Duke describes Angelo as ‘a man of stricture and firm abstinence’.
How far and in what ways does Shakespeare’s presentation of Angelo support the
Duke’s comment?
showing what it contributes to your understanding of Claudio and Isabella.
Isabella: Yes, brother, you may live:

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you’ll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.
Claudio: Perpetual durance?
Isabella: Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
Though all the world’s vastidity you had,
To a determin’d scope.
Claudio: But in what nature?
Isabella: In such a one as, you consenting to’t,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
And leave you naked.
Claudio: Let me know the point.
Or else thou diest to-morrow.
Isabella: Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
Be perdurably fin’d? – O Isabel!
And blown with restless violence round about
Act 3, Scene 1

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EMMA

She must communicate the painful truth, however, and as soon as

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of

June 2016 (1)

June 2016 (2)

June 2016 (3)

November 2016 (1)

(a)Discuss Austen’s presentation of different attitudes to social class and status in

November 2016 (2)

June 2017 (1)

(a) Frank Churchill is described as ‘a disgrace to the name of man’.

June 2017 (3)

November 2017 (1)

(a) ‘Austen suggests marriage is a business arrangement for money or status.’

November 2017 (2)

(a) Discuss Austen’s presentation of different attitudes to marriage in the novel.

November 2017 (3)

(a) ‘Austen suggests marriage is a business arrangement for money or status.’

(a) ‘The old fantastical duke of dark corners.’

Scene I. A hall in Angelo’s house.

(a) ‘… What’s open made to justice, That justice seizes.’

(a) ‘I partly think

Lucio: What news, friar, of the Duke?

(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, commenting in particular on

Isabella: O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Provost: This is another prisoner that I sav’d,

(a) Discuss Shakespeare’s presentation of women in Measure for Measure.

(b) Write a critical appreciation of the following passage, commenting in particular on

Lucio: Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.

June 2016 (2)

Angelo: Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Angelo: I think it well;

November 2016 (1)

(a) Discuss the significance of Shakespeare’s presentation of different attitudes to

Angelo: What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

November 2016 (2)

(a) Angelo: What’s open made to justice,

[The city gate.

June 2017 (1)

(a) Isabella: More than our brother is our chastity.

Duke: There is our commission.

(a) Claudio: This day my sister should the cloister enter.

June 2017 (3)

Duke: I do make myself believe that you may most

Isabella: Yes, brother, you may live:

November 2017 (2)

(a) Angelo: I crave death more willingly than mercy,

Claudio: Sweet sister, let me live.

November 2017 (3)

Isabella: Yes, brother, you may live:

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