Contextual Approaches to Prose

AO3 requires you to demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. For the prose set texts, this means understanding the historical, social, cultural, and literary contexts that shape how love is represented — and how different periods construct different meanings for desire, marriage, gender, and transgression.

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Historical and Social Contexts

The Regency Period: Persuasion (1817)

Context	Relevance
The Napoleonic Wars	Wentworth is a naval captain whose fortune and status depend on war — his career embodies the period's combination of opportunity and danger
The landed gentry	Sir Walter Elliot's obsession with rank and the Baronetage represents the declining authority of inherited status
Women's dependence	Anne has no independent income; her future depends on marriage. Lady Russell's advice to refuse Wentworth was motivated by economic prudence as much as snobbery
The marriage market	Bath functions as a marriage market where eligible women are displayed and assessed — Anne's discomfort in Bath reflects her resistance to being commodified