Specifications that use this resource:

Love through the ages: specimen question commentary

This resource explains how a question taken from the specimen assessment material addresses the assessment objectives, with some suggestions of how the task might be approached. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every point that could be made but it gives teachers and students some guidance that will support their work on this paper.

Paper 1, Section C

Sample Question        

Compare how the authors of two texts you have studied present barriers to love.

How the question meets the Assessment Objectives

In this question, as throughout the paper, the assessment objectives are all assessed.  As a result, all the key words in the question should be addressed, indicating either focus (how authors present, barriers to love) or direction (compare, two texts).

AO1 is tested through the way the students organise their writing and express their ideas as they are comparing how barriers to love are presented. Students will need to use coherent, accurate written expression in their answer in order to compare efficiently and in doing so will use appropriate concepts and terminology.

AO2 is set up in the requirement for students to explore the writers' methods and their effects, signalled by the word 'present', and to show how the methods open up meanings about intense emotions and barriers to love. Students should illustrate their answers with relevant textual detail wherever possible – with quotations and other close reference – to support the points in their comparison and discussion.

AO3 is addressed when candidates demonstrate an understanding of the various contexts of barriers to love, for example class, racial, physical, religious, political, emotional, permanent and temporary. In exploring the nature of barriers to love as presented in their two texts, students will engage not only with the specific context of Love through the ages, but also with the contexts of when texts were written and of reader response.

To address AO4 students will make comparisons between their two chosen texts, as directed in the question, and will connect to a wider awareness of barriers to love and the many forms its representation can take in literature of Love through the ages.

AO5 will be addressed when students grapple with meanings that arise about barriers to love in the texts and show an understanding that through comparison different meanings can be opened up. Critical viewpoints might be used to help advance the argument, or to offer alternatives. 

Possible content

[The exemplar scripts here use Kate Chopin, The Awakening as the prose text and AQA Anthology of Love Poetry through the Ages: Post-1900 as the poetry text. The specific guidance below gives examples only from those two texts.]

Students will address AO2 if they focus on any of the following, according to which genre their chosen texts belong to. This is an Open Book examination, therefore candidates are expected to quote appropriately and accurately from those texts.

For the prose text (here The Awakening), attention could be paid to:

  • narrative structure: how the sequence of events reflects Edna's process of 'awakening' and so her increasing attempt to overcome the barrier of social expectation to be with the man she loves (initial internal stirrings on meeting Robert; beginning to paint again; learning to swim; refusing to fulfil wifely duties; awareness of sexuality in relationship with Alcee Arobin; moving out of marital home; suicide as complete solitude and defeat or as ultimate freedom and independence)
  • the delineation and presentation of character. A range of female characters are drawn against which Edna can be judged: Adele as the Victorian feminine ideal of the devoted wife and mother; the lady in black as representative of the socially acceptable widow; the two young lovers who symbolise acceptable (pre-motherhood) love; the Farival twins who are destined to join the nunnery; Mademoiselle Reisz whose independence is epitomised in her devotion to her passion of music
  • the ironic narrative voice
  • the use of dialogue and of indirect speech: as Edna learns to define things for herself and to express herself through female Creole frankness, through her painting and those around her
  • the description of settings helps to mark Edna's process of 'awakening': Grand Isle and the marital home in New Orleans represent the social expectation of Edna as 'mother-woman' and perfect hostess; the Cheniere Caminada provides the initial, albeit temporary, glimpse at a romantic world and so of liberation; the pigeon house which is supposed to symbolise Edna's independence but in fact isolates her
  • ways of influencing the reader's response to character and incident, for example the use of metaphor: the caged parrot which cannot make itself understood as representative of Edna; the winged bird at the seashore, initially in Edna's imagination flying away from a man as Edna wished to escape but at the end of the novel injured and crashing into the water; the sea as a symbol of Edna's rebirth where its vastness suggests freedom and escape from social expectation but also represents the loneliness of independence.

For the poetry text (here AQA Anthology of Love Poetry through the Ages: Post-1900), attention could be paid to:

  • use of structural features to convey difficulty of communication e.g. enjambment and erratic rhyme scheme in 'Talking in Bed'; conversely a steady rhyme scheme in 'One Flesh' to suggest an ongoing bond in spite of separation
  • use of irony e.g. a poem entitled 'Talking in Bed' which is actually a poem about silence
  • use of contrast in 'One Flesh' to show the change in the couple's relationship from passion to separation or in 'For My Lover, Returning To His Wife' to highlight the difference between the wife and the mistress; the silent inside contrasted with the active outside in 'Talking in Bed'
  • use of figurative language methods e.g. in 'One Flesh' a metaphor to convey the fragility of marriage, a simile to show the wreckage of the relationship; in 'For My Lover, Returning To His Wife'  a metaphor to suggest the temporary nature of the mistress and a simile to convey  the permanence of the wife
  • use of symbolism such as the wedding ring in 'Timer'.

To address AO3 students will need to explore: the nature of barriers to love as it affects those who desire a relationship (Edna and Robert in The Awakening, the poet in 'After the Lunch') or those already within a relationship (Edna and Leonce in The Awakening, the poet in 'For My Lover, Returning to His Wife', the married couples in 'One Flesh' and 'Talking in Bed'); the nature and impact of social convention as a barrier to love on the one hand, and of mental and emotional separation and difficulty of communication within a relationship on the other; how the presentation of barriers to love is connected to other themes and subjects in the literature of Love through the ages. Students need to take account of the fact that The Awakening (1899) was written in a transitional phase for American women's writing which was challenging a literary tradition of the Victorian feminine ideal of devoted wife and mother; Louisiana at that time still saw women as their husband's legal property and, as a largely Catholic state, divorce was extremely rare. By 1964, whilst divorce was still unusual and people stayed together unhappily 'for the sake of the children', students might reflect on the changing attitudes towards marriage which emerged in the late 1960s/early 1970s when writing about 'Talking in Bed'.

AO4 will be addressed when candidates compare the presentation of barriers to love in their two texts, thereby connecting with the representation of one of the central issues of the literature of Love through the ages. They could cite examples of changing ideas about the nature of love and about barriers to love which might be experienced. They should, however, concentrate on the differences and similarities noted between their two chosen texts and attempt to make valid comparisons at all significant stages of their answers, as directed in the question. Comparisons with The Awakening might include:

  • 'One Flesh' and 'Talking in Bed' for social expectations of and within marriage; feelings of isolation and separation within marriage; difficulty of communication; how love within marriage changes over time
  • 'For My Lover, Returning to His Wife' for lover admitting defeat to the wife and so to the conventions of marriage; the inability to match up to the representation of the 'perfect' wife and mother; the temporary nature of the adulteress
  • 'Timer' where the symbolism of the wedding ring, which survives the cremation, is celebrated as a sign that love continues even after death; conversely  Edna's inability to destroy her wedding ring and so social convention is portrayed as a barrier to love between Edna and Robert
  • 'After the Lunch' where the poet's heart is ruling her head and convincing the rational self that love can overcome any potential barriers, much as Edna does in The Awakening.

The criteria of AO5 are met if students are able to show that they have fully 'compared the presentation of barriers to love' in their chosen texts. They should be ready to initiate and manage interpretations around the nature and possible forms of barriers to love as expressed in those texts (social expectation, physical distance, difficulty of communication, mental and emotional separation, acceptance of defeat, the temporary nature of love) and to evaluate the extent to which the contrasting genres – here prose and poetry – affect the ways in which barriers to love are presented and meanings generally are understood by the reader.

Other aspects of love which can be explored in The Awakening

  • The difference between society's expectations of men and of women in matters of love: men appear to have greater freedom but, whilst Robert's passion for Edna is strong, he will not break with social expectations and so refuses to enter into a permanent relationship with Edna
  • Jealousy: context of Creole husbands who are so sure of their woman's fidelity that they do not even entertain the idea that they would be unfaithful and so do not succumb to jealousy, hence Leonce's failure to understand that the change in Edna has anything to do with another man; outside marriage, however, both Edna and Robert feel jealousy of the other's attention towards other people
  • Robert's engagement in courtly love; acceptable in Creole society because of the husband's complete faith in his wife's fidelity
  • Passion: only portrayed outside marriage such as by the young lovers; Edna recollects her passionate infatuations before marriage; Edna, whose passions are aroused by music, now only feels passion with Robert and Alcee; the lady in black has to suppress passion out of respect for her dead husband
  • Familial love: Adele as the 'perfect mother' in opposition to Edna who feels enslaved by her children
  • Truth and deception: Edna does not set out to deceive her husband but ironically does not need to because of his own self-deception as to the absolute fidelity of married women.

This resource is part of the Love through the ages resource package.