AS Level Prose

Worksheet 7
1 Main characters with some dialogue: What impression is created of the
characters of the ‘I’ of the story and the ‘she’? Look closely at the language to
see how the writer does this. How do you respond to them? (From Emily Brontë:
Wuthering Heights.)

She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form,
and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of
beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden,
hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in
expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible
heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of
desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters were
almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as
a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold.

‘I don’t want your help,’ she snapped; ‘I can get them for myself.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ I hastened to reply.

‘Were you asked to tea?’ she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black
frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

‘I shall be glad to have a cup,’ I answered.

‘Were you asked?’ she repeated.

‘No,’ I said, half smiling. ‘You are the proper person to ask me.’

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her
forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child’s ready
to cry.

2 Subsidiary and main character with dialogue: What does the dialogue tell us
about the intellect and attitudes of the speakers? How does this interchange
differ from drama? (From Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice.)

As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the

following manner:—

‘You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my

journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why
I come.’

Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment.

© Cambridge University Press 2019 1

 ‘Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to
account for the honour of seeing you here.’

‘Miss Bennet,’ replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, ‘you ought to

know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may
choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been
celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such
moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most
alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your
sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that
you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon
afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though
I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure
him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved
on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to
you.’

‘If you believed it impossible to be true,’ said Elizabeth, colouring with

astonishment and disdain, ‘I wonder you took the trouble of coming so
far. What could your ladyship propose by it?’

‘At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.’

‘You’re coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,’ said Elizabeth

coolly, ‘will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in
existence.’

‘If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been

industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a
report is spread abroad?’

‘I never heard that it was.’

‘And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?’

‘I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You

may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.’

‘This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he,
has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?’

‘Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.’

3 Setting, with imagery and symbolism: Consider the descriptive effects closely.
(From Charles Dickens: Great Expectations.)

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated.
From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had
an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in
the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than
to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed
colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry

© Cambridge University Press 2019 2

 branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the
chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its
darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome,
but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and
dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was a long table with a
tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the
house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece
of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung
with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I
looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming
to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy
bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some
circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in
the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same
occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles
took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a
ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of
hearing, and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching

them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my
shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she
leaned, and she looked like the Witch of
the place.

4 Narrative: Who might the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ be in the first section? What is ‘it’
and how does it relate to the second part in Chapter XVI? Discuss the
different first persons. (From Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.)

I have it now before me; and though you could not, of course, peruse it
with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with
an abbreviation of its contents, and you shall have the whole, save,
perhaps, a few passages here and there of merely temporary interest
to the writer, or such as would serve to encumber the story rather than
elucidate it. It begins somewhat abruptly, thus—but we will reserve its
commencement for another chapter.

CHAPTER XVI

June 1st, 1821.—We have just returned to Staningley—that is, we

returned some days ago, and I am not yet settled, and feel as if I never
should be. We left town sooner than was intended, in consequence of
my uncle’s indisposition;—I wonder what would have been the result if
we had stayed the full time. I am quite ashamed of my new-sprung
distaste for country life. All my former occupations seem so tedious
and dull, my former amusements so insipid and unprofitable. I cannot
enjoy my music, because there is no one to hear it. I cannot enjoy my
walks, because there is no one to meet.

© Cambridge University Press 2019 3

 5 Setting and its effect on the first-person narrator: What impression do you
receive of the setting and the character of the storyteller. Look closely at
imagery and sentence structure. (From Edgar Allen Poe: The Fall of the House
of Usher.)

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of
the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had
been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of
country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew
on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it
was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable
gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment,
with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images
of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon
the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—
upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few
rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an
utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation
more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the
bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil.

© Cambridge University Press 2019 4