1. Revising Context Objectives:
To know relevant contextual information for all our literature texts.
To understand how context has impacted the text.
To be able to make relevant and effective links between the text and context.

2. Literature Paper 1
Literature Paper 2

4. So Context is worth roughly 5 Marks out of 30ish
This is roughly 20 marks of your literature qualification.
But Remember, a good use of context can also support your A01 and A02

5. From Memory, what context can you remember?

6. Literature Mocks
Look through your two Mocks – Macbeth and Christmas Carol in your book and Blood Brothers and Poetry on your exam paper. Tick and count each contextual reference you think you made. How many did you make? You should be aiming for at least 8 references – 2 in each.

7. Contextual factors
6 Areas to consider: - Different Texts will have different amounts
Genre
Geographical
Literary
Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical

8. Genre
Geographical
Literary
Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical

9. Macbeth 17 Genre Geographical Literary
A Gothic text with conventions like setting, elements of the supernatural, blood, ghosts etc.
Greek tragic conventions – Tragic Hero and Hamartia
Scotland – Seen as wild and uncivilised by Jacobean audiences.
Chronicles of Holinshed – this told the real history of Macbeth and Warring Scottish clans. It suggests that the real Macbeth was also a traitor and a tyrant.
Shakespeare wrote several plays about broken monarchies – Hamlet
Macbeth 17
Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical
James I believed in Witches and was fascinated with the supernatural.
James I also established the idea of the divine right of kings – basically God selects the monarch.
There is an indirect lineage between the ‘Real’ Banquo and James I. The honourable Banquo is a tribute to James I.
Witch trials were commonplace.
Macbeth was written a year after the gunpowder plot – an example of treachery.
Shakespeare wrote the play to please James I.
Shakespeare is potentially satirising the monarchy.
Shakespeare’s plays took on darker tones in the Jacobean era – emphasising the insecure national mood
Jacobean audiences would genuinely believe in witches and they would fear them greatly.
The public were expected to be obedient to their king.
Women were expected to be obedient wives and mothers.
Jacobean’s still firmly believed in the chain of being – a belief that God has a plan for humanity – and to go against this plan was a sin.

10. Greek tragic conventions – Tragic Hero and Hamartia
Genre
Geographical
Literary
A Gothic text with conventions like setting, elements of the supernatural, blood, ghosts etc.
Greek tragic conventions – Tragic Hero and Hamartia
Scotland – Seen as wild and uncivilised by Jacobean audiences.
Chronicles of Holinshed – this told the real history of Macbeth and Warring Scottish clans. It suggests that the real Macbeth was also a traitor and a tyrant.
Shakespeare wrote several plays about broken monarchies – Hamlet
Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical
James I believed in Witches and was fascinated with the supernatural.
James I also established the idea of the divine right of kings – basically God selects the monarch.
There is an indirect lineage between the ‘Real’ Banquo and James I. The honourable Banquo is a tribute to James I.
Witch trials were commonplace.
Macbeth was written a year after the gunpowder plot – an example of treachery.
Shakespeare wrote the play to please James I.
Shakespeare is potentially satirising the monarchy.
Shakespeare’s plays took on darker tones in the Jacobean era – emphasising the insecure national mood
Jacobean audiences would genuinely believe in witches and they would fear them greatly.
The public were expected to be obedient to their king.
Women were expected to be obedient wives and mothers.
Jacobean’s still firmly believed in the chain of being – a belief that God has a plan for humanity – and to go against this plan was a sin.

11. Macbeth – Exam topics
Supernatural
Heroism
Mental health/insanity
Masculinity
Gender
Fate
Ambition
Violence
Death
Power
Fear
Appearance vs Reality
Good vs Evil
Lies/Deception
Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
The Witches
Banquo
For this question what contextual links should you make?

12. What could the context be?
In Act 5 Scene 3 Shakespeare presents Macbeth far more as a disorganised and delusional leader than a hero. “The mind I sway by and the heart I bear/ Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.” Shakespeare uses the imperative ‘never’ to show Macbeth’s stubbornness as he refuses to surrender. This could be perceived as the defiant act of a hero however the repetition of negative active verbs ‘sway’, ‘sag’ and ‘shake’ present the character as conflicted and incapable of surrender even though he knows he is defeated. Also his faith in his ‘mind’ and his ‘heart’ is ironic as the character has already been presented as weak minded and easily manipulated. This has a frustrating effect on the reader as Macbeth is acting like he is a valiant hero but the audience know that atrocities he has committed and that he should surrender.

13. How to write contextual links…
You must talk about the impact of a contextual factor on the writer… Shakespeare has clearly been influenced by the chronicles of Holinshed and the depiction of the ‘real’ Macbeth as traitorous and unheroic has impacted on Shakespeare's portrayal. A contextual link for this is the real Macbeth who was a tyrant and a traitor.

14. Where could the context go?
In Act 5 Scene 3 Shakespeare presents Macbeth far more as a disorganised and delusional leader than a hero. “The mind I sway by and the heart I bear/ Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.” Shakespeare uses the imperative ‘never’ to show Macbeth’s stubbornness as he refuses to surrender. This could be perceived as the defiant act of a hero however the repetition of negative active verbs ‘sway’, ‘sag’ and ‘shake’ present the character as conflicted and incapable of surrender even though he knows he is defeated. Also his faith in his ‘mind’ and his ‘heart’ is ironic as the character has already been presented as weak minded and easily manipulated. This has a frustrating effect on the reader as Macbeth is acting like he is a valiant hero but the audience know that atrocities he has committed and that he should surrender.

15. Blood Brothers Genre Geographical Literary Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical

16. Christmas Carol Genre Geographical Literary Historical
Sociological (Social behaviour)
Biographical

17. How to write contextual links…
You must talk about the impact of a contextual factor on the writer… Shakespeare has clearly been influenced by the chronicles of Holinshed and the depiction of the ‘real’ Macbeth as traitorous and unheroic has impacted on Shakespeare's portrayal. A contextual link for this is the real Macbeth who was a tyrant and a traitor. Insert two contextual links into your Blood Brothers and Christmas Carol Mocks – I would advise you to rewrite a paragraph.

18. Ragged schools were institutions set up to provide education to destitute children.
Dickens father went to prison plummeting the family into financial difficulty.
Dickens writes a lot about the plight of children, for example Oliver in Oliver Twist and Pip in Great Expectations.
The novel is written during the industrial revolution.
The population in London increased 3 fold in Dickens’ lifetime.
The poor law of 1834 stopped benefits going straight to the poor, instead they had to access a workhouse.
The Treadmill was a way of punishing prisoners. The continuously tread the wheel to generate power for the Mill. This often resulted in exhaustion and in some cases death.
Dickens saw first hand the rise of crime, prostitution, workhouses, child labour and disease as London grew and grew.
Dickens felt that the distribution of wealth in Victorian England was extremely unfair.
The education act wasn’t introduced until 1880 meaning that Children didn’t have to go to school – they would often start working from the age of 6 in trades such as chimney sweeping.
In Some larger cities , 1 in 5 children born in the 1830s and 1840s had died before the age of 5.
Victorian society was secretive. Money and Wealth weren’t meant to be talked about.
Queen Victoria encouraged people to celebrate a Christmas by introducing traditions such as a tree and giving presents.
Victorian’s were known for their religious virtues of forgiveness and repentance.

19. In this extract, how does Dickens present the Cratchit Family?
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.“
Which all the family re-echoed.
"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before,"tell me if Tiny Tim will live.“
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."
In this extract, how does Dickens present the Cratchit Family?

20. Starting with the extract, explain how Dickens presents attitudes towards Christmas. Write about:
how Dickens presents Christmas in the extract
how Dickens presents Christmas in the novel as a whole