WOMEN: MARRIAGE AND SOCIAL CLASS IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND KS3 CONTEXT AUSTEN, BRONTE, DICKENS

Students are shown a short set of slides defining women and marriage in Victorian times, including part of a Tennyson poem and Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Kahoot quiz follows (link available). Then students should match up a range of Pride and Prejudice quotations about marriage with the modern translation to get an idea of how important marriage was to women at this time. They will then watch the clip where Mr Collins proposes to Lizzie to show that she was atypical of victorian women of the time. Then we look at noble women and the extract where Lady Catherine de Bourgh visits Lizzie Bennet to show her disapproval of her alleged marriage to Mr Darcy. Discussion of language choices to show her attitude to the middle classes. Radio clip of a rich girl relating a day in her life; this links to the idea of governesses which are looked at in connection with middle class women and their jobs. Students can use two extracts to compare the job of a governess (Jane Eyre) with an account of the duties of a lady’s maid. Leads on to lower class women and a clip of Downton Abbey where students have to be observant and answer a series of questions about the servants’ roles. Leads to women (Nancy) who cannot get respectable work - students look at an extract and then freeze frame the emotions described. Ends with creating a wordle about all that they have learned.