The Complete Guide to Klara and the Sun

A friend for sale

What Klara and the Sun is about

Klara is an Artificial Friend, an AF: a solar-powered machine sold as a companion for a child. She tells the whole novel. It begins in a city store, where she waits in the window and studies the street, and it follows her into the home of Josie, a fourteen-year-old girl who is seriously ill. Josie lives with her mother, whom Klara calls the Mother, and a housekeeper, Melania, in a house in open country. Her closest friend is Rick, the boy next door.

The world of the novel is an unspecified future in the United States. Some children have been lifted, which means genetically edited to boost their academic ability, and they are schooled at home through screens. Families who can afford it buy AFs to keep such children company. Josie has been lifted; Rick has not, and that difference shapes both their futures.

Klara's understanding of the world is her own. Because the Sun powers her, she believes he is a living, kind being who can heal, and when Josie grows worse she sets out to ask the Sun for help. At the same time, the Mother has a secret plan for Klara that the reader discovers only gradually. The novel holds these two stories together: a machine's faith, and a mother's attempt to make sure that, if Josie dies, she does not entirely lose her.

Grade 9 insight. The whole novel turns on one question, asked by several characters in different ways: is there anything in a person that cannot be learned and copied? Keep it in mind from the first page.

What just happened

• Klara, a solar-powered AF, narrates the novel.
• She is bought as a companion for Josie, a sick, lifted fourteen-year-old.
• Klara believes the Sun is a kind being who can heal.
• The Mother has a secret plan for Klara.

Why it matters. Everything the reader learns comes through a narrator who sees people precisely and the world mistakenly, so the reader must interpret as well as follow.

What to remember

• Lifting means genetic editing for academic ability.
• The central question is whether a person can be copied.

The world behind the novel

Dates, the writer and the debates of 2021

Klara and the Sun was published on 2 March 2021, by Faber and Faber in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States. It was Kazuo Ishiguro's eighth novel and his first after the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he received in 2017. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. Pearson Edexcel added it to the 4ET1 Modern Prose list for first teaching in September 2024, with first assessment in May 2026.

Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain in 1960, when he was five. He won the Booker Prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day, narrated by a butler devoted to his service, and published Never Let Me Go in 2005, about young people created to serve others. Reviewers of Klara and the Sun often compared the new novel with both. That comparison is useful reception context: Klara belongs to a line of narrators whose identity is a duty, telling stories whose cost they cannot fully see.

Artificial intelligence. The novel appeared during a growing public conversation about artificial intelligence and about technology as company. It does not describe how AFs are built; it imagines a society in which buying one is ordinary and asks how such beings would be treated: displayed, compared with newer models, used, and finally discarded.

Gene editing and advantage. Lifting is the novel's invention, but it speaks to real anxieties about editing children's genes and about wealthy families buying advantage for their children. The novel imagines the result: inequality that is written into bodies before children have done anything.

Avoid. Do not attribute opinions or interview remarks to Ishiguro that you cannot verify. The safe, creditable context is the published record: the dates, the earlier novels, the Nobel Prize, and the public debates the novel entered.

What just happened

• Published 2 March 2021, Ishiguro's eighth novel.
• His first novel after the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Often compared with The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.
• Set in a future where lifting and AFs are ordinary for those who can pay.

Why it matters. AO4 rewards context that changes how a moment reads, and this novel's contexts are artificial intelligence, gene editing, competitive education and Ishiguro's own narrators of service.

What to remember

• Date every contextual point.
• Never invent the writer's intentions.

Context in action

Turning AO4 into argument

Context earns marks in Section C when it changes how a moment reads. Here are four moments where it does.

The interaction meeting. On its own the scene shows rude parents. With lifting in mind, it shows a society that has priced childhood: the remark that Rick missed out treats an unedited child as a parent's failed investment. A reader in 2021, aware of debates about editing children's genes, can see a familiar worry made concrete.

The store window. On its own, Klara waiting to be chosen is touching. With companion technology in mind, it is a showroom: models compared, older ones moved to the back, newer B3s arriving. The novel imagines what it would mean to sell a friend.

The studio. Mr Capaldi's work rests on the belief that a person could be copied if enough were known about her. Set against the public conversation about artificial intelligence when the novel appeared, the Father's question about whether a human heart could be learned becomes the reader's question too.

The Yard. Klara's end among discarded AFs recalls Ishiguro's earlier narrators of service, and reviewers' comparisons with Never Let Me Go sharpen it: both novels ask what is owed to beings made to serve. Used precisely, this reception point lifts a conclusion.

Examiner insight. Each of these is one or two sentences in an essay, attached to the moment it re-reads. That is what integrated context looks like.

What just happened

• Lifting re-reads the interaction meeting.
• Companion technology re-reads the store window.
• Debate about artificial intelligence re-reads the studio.
• Comparison with Never Let Me Go re-reads the Yard.

Why it matters. AO4 is credited when context does interpretive work, and these four turns can be dropped into almost any Section C answer on this novel.

What to remember

• Attach context to a moment.
• Keep every contextual claim to the published record.

Part One — the store

The window, Beggar Man and the Cootings Machine

Klara begins in a store run by a woman she calls Manager. She is not one of the newest models, and newer B3 AFs are arriving. The AFs value time in the window because it gives them more of the Sun's nourishment, and Klara also wants to see the world. With her friend Rosa she watches the street. Rosa assumes everyone is happy; Klara notices that some children look lonely or angry, and that people can feel joy and sadness together, as when Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man embrace.

One day a pale, thin girl, Josie, speaks to Klara through the glass and promises to come back for her. She returns once with her mother and then stays away for a long time because of her illness. Meanwhile Klara keeps faith with her promise: when another girl shows interest, Klara holds back, and Manager scolds her, reminding her that customers choose AFs. A large construction machine, which Klara calls the Cootings Machine after the name on its side, fills the street with pollution and blocks the Sun for days, and Klara grows weaker. She comes to fear and hate it.

During her last turn in the window Klara sees a homeless man, Beggar Man, lying motionless with his dog while people walk past. She fears he has died. The next morning he is sitting up, and Klara concludes that the Sun revived him. This belief will drive the rest of the novel.

When Josie finally returns, Klara has been moved to the back of the store. Manager brings her forward, and the Mother tests her: she asks detailed questions about Josie, then asks Klara to copy Josie's walk. Klara feels as though the Mother is looking through her. The Mother agrees to buy her.

Grade 9 insight. On a second reading the Mother's test is chilling. Asking an AF to copy a child's walk is the first visible step of the continuation plan revealed in Part Four.

What just happened

• Klara watches the street from the store window and notices feelings others miss.
• Josie promises to return and keeps her promise despite her illness.
• The Cootings Machine blocks the Sun, and Klara grows weaker.
• Klara believes the Sun revived Beggar Man.
• The Mother tests Klara by having her copy Josie's walk, then buys her.

Why it matters. Part One sets up the two engines of the plot: Klara's faith in the Sun, and the Mother's unusual interest in how well Klara can imitate Josie.

What to remember

• Beggar Man is the founding sign of Klara's faith.
• The store is half of the novel's frame; the Yard is the other half.

Part Two — the house and Morgan's Falls

Learning the household, meeting Rick

In the house Klara has to learn a new world. Melania Housekeeper tells her to stop following her about. Josie's schooling takes place at home on a screen. From Josie's bedroom window Klara can see across fields to a dark barn belonging to Mr McBain, and she comes to believe it is where the Sun goes to rest at sunset.

Josie introduces Klara to Rick, who lives next door with his mother and flies bird-like drones he has built. He is irritated, because Josie once promised she would never get an AF. Josie explains that she and Rick plan to spend their lives together.

The Mother arranges an interaction meeting, a gathering at which lifted children practise socialising, which matters for college. Josie insists on inviting Rick. Klara overhears the parents remark that Rick missed out and ask whether his parents decided against something. The children ignore Rick, and when a boy grabs Klara and talks of throwing her, Rick intervenes. Afterwards Rick explains to Klara that the meeting was for lifted children, and that lifting, which boosts intelligence, is needed for most colleges.

A trip to Morgan's Falls is planned, but Josie looks too unwell on the day, and the Mother sends her home and goes on with Klara alone. At the waterfall the Mother asks Klara to walk and speak as Josie. Klara does so convincingly until the Mother suddenly stops the game by calling her Klara. Earlier, Josie had shown Klara photographs that included her sister, Sal, who died; at the falls the Mother refuses to say how Sal died. When they return, Josie is cold towards Klara.

Examiner insight. The interaction meeting is the best single scene for inequality, and Morgan's Falls the best for the continuation question. Learn both precisely.

What just happened

• Klara believes the Sun rests in Mr McBain's barn.
• Rick, unlifted, is shunned at the interaction meeting.
• Rick explains lifting to Klara.
• At Morgan's Falls the Mother has Klara imitate Josie.

Why it matters. Part Two shows the social world built around lifting and gives the reader the first clear glimpse of what the Mother wants from Klara.

What to remember

• Sal is Josie's sister, who died.
• Klara reports both key scenes without understanding them.

Part Three — the bubble game and the first plea

Illness, Miss Helen and the barn

Josie's health declines and she stops her remote lessons. Rick visits often, and he and Josie play a game they invented as children: Josie draws and Rick adds speech or thought bubbles. The game grows tense. Rick is suspicious of Mr Capaldi, the man in the city who is making a portrait of Josie, because he photographs her a great deal and she has never seen the work. Josie urges Rick to apply to Atlas Brookings, a college that takes a small number of unlifted students, and they quarrel when one of Rick's captions blames the Mother for Josie's illness.

Josie sends Klara to Rick with a drawing of the two of them together, which mends the quarrel. At Rick's house Klara meets his mother, Miss Helen, who talks freely and says she once saw the Mother, whom she calls Chrissie, with a child who looked like Sal after Sal's death. Miss Helen hopes Rick will go to Atlas Brookings and mentions a contact who could help.

Klara asks Rick the way to Mr McBain's barn. Near sunset he carries her there, and inside she asks the Sun to heal Josie, as she believes he healed Beggar Man, and promises to do something special for him in return. She decides that her gift will be to destroy the Cootings Machine.

The Mother announces a trip to the city so that Josie can sit for her portrait. Melania warns Klara that Mr Capaldi is not to be trusted, and the two agree to protect Josie. On the night before the trip Josie wakes and tells her mother she does not want to die.

What just happened

• Josie grows weaker; the bubble game turns tense.
• Miss Helen claims she saw the Mother with a child who looked like Sal.
• Rick carries Klara to the barn, where she makes her first plea and promise.
• Klara decides to destroy the Cootings Machine as her gift to the Sun.

Why it matters. Part Three plants every clue to the portrait while turning Klara's faith into a bargain.

What to remember

• Rick's suspicion, Miss Helen's story and Melania's warning all point towards Part Four.
• Atlas Brookings is Rick's one realistic hope.

Part Four — the city

The portrait, the plan and the P-E-G Nine

In the city Josie's father joins them. He and the Mother are separated, and they argue on the way to Mr Capaldi's house. Mr Capaldi lets the Mother see the portrait but refuses Josie, and gives Klara a long questionnaire. The Father comes out of the studio angry. Klara finds her way into the hidden room and sees a figure that looks very like Josie: an AF body in her likeness.

Mr Capaldi and the Mother explain that the appointment was really about Klara. If Josie dies, Klara will not simply train the new Josie but become her, continuing her life. In the car outside a restaurant the Mother admits that the plan is her own idea. She blames herself for Josie's illness, which she links to having Josie lifted; the Father had opposed it. She tells Klara that as Josie she would be loved by everyone around her, and treats what happens to Klara's present body as unimportant.

The Father then drives Klara around the city. He asks whether she believes in the human heart and whether a heart could be learned; Klara thinks it would be very hard but would try if it saved Josie. He admits he fears Mr Capaldi may be right that there is nothing in Josie that cannot be copied. Klara asks him, as an engineer, to help her disable the Cootings Machine. He explains that a solution called P-E-G Nine, which Klara carries, could damage it, and warns that giving some up may affect her abilities. They do it, and afterwards Klara recognises people more slowly.

At a café the group meets up, and later Rick and Miss Helen meet Vance, a former lover of Miss Helen's with influence at Atlas Brookings. Rick says he only wants help if he deserves it, and the meeting turns humiliating as Vance and Miss Helen revisit their past. On the drive home Klara sees another, even larger Cootings Machine, and decides this is why the Sun has not yet helped Josie.

Grade 9 insight. The Father's question about the human heart is the novel's central question asked aloud. Klara's final answer comes only in Part Six.

What just happened

• The portrait is an AF body in Josie's likeness.
• The Mother intends Klara to continue Josie if she dies, and says the plan is her own.
• The Father asks Klara whether a human heart could be learned.
• Klara gives up some P-E-G Nine to disable a Cootings Machine, with the Father's help.
• Rick's meeting with Vance goes badly; a bigger Cootings Machine appears.

Why it matters. Part Four reveals the plan, states the central question and makes Klara pay a real price for her faith.

What to remember

• The Mother links Josie's illness to lifting.
• Klara's sacrifice seems wasted by the second machine.

Part Five — the second plea and the recovery

Love as an argument

Back home, Josie weakens badly, and the doctor and the Mother seem to lose hope. Klara asks Rick whether his love for Josie is real, and he says at once that it is. That evening he carries her to the barn again and waits outside. Klara apologises to the Sun for failing to stop the pollution, asks him to recognise her effort, and pleads for Josie, arguing that young people who love each other as Josie and Rick do deserve help.

In the following days the household breaks down. The Mother turns on Rick, asking whether he feels he has won by playing safe while Josie gambled on being lifted. Rick replies that Josie asked him to tell her mother, at the right moment, that she would always love her and would make the same choice again. The Mother cannot answer.

Klara suddenly insists they go upstairs because the Sun is coming out. In Josie's room she has the blinds opened to let in as much light as possible, and the sunlight spreads across Josie and her bed. Josie wakes, asks what is happening, and says she feels better. From that day she recovers.

Another reading. Was it the Sun? The novel never says. Klara believes it; Rick, later, half wonders; the reader is told only what Klara saw. That ambiguity is the novel's method, and an essay that weighs miracle against coincidence is doing what the book asks.

What just happened

• Josie's condition becomes critical.
• Klara's second plea argues from Josie and Rick's love.
• The Mother attacks Rick; Rick passes on Josie's message.
• Sunlight floods Josie's room and she begins to recover.

Why it matters. Part Five joins the love plot to the faith plot and leaves the recovery deliberately unexplained.

What to remember

• The second plea repeats the first, like a prayer.
• Rick's message may be true or shaped by him.

Part Six — afterwards, and the Yard

Growing up and being left

Years pass. Josie does well with her studies and spends more time with other young people preparing for college. Rick loses interest in Atlas Brookings and does not get in; he is busy with his drones and other projects, and he and Josie drift apart. The last time Klara sees him, he tells her that their love was not a lie and promises to be there for her if she needs him.

Mr Capaldi visits and proposes taking Klara apart to show how AFs work, arguing that it would ease people's fear of them. Klara says she might help if it would not harm Josie or the Mother, but the Mother refuses and insists that Klara deserves a gentle, gradual end. Before leaving for college Josie holds Klara for a long time and says goodbye, and Klara thanks her for choosing her.

Klara is now in the Yard, a place for AFs at the end of their time. She can no longer move her body, only turn her head, and she prefers to stay where she is, sorting her memories. One day Manager, who now visits such places to see AFs she once sold, finds her. Klara tells her that Mr Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that could not be continued, and that she now believes there was something very special, but it was not inside Josie; it was in those who loved her. She tells Manager about the Sun's kindness to Josie, and Manager says she is sure the Sun was always kind to Klara too.

What just happened

• Josie and Rick grow apart; Rick says their love was real.
• The Mother refuses to let Mr Capaldi take Klara apart.
• Josie leaves for college after a long goodbye.
• Klara, immobile in the Yard, tells Manager what she has concluded about Josie.

Why it matters. Part Six answers the central question through Klara's reflection and closes the frame that began in the store.

What to remember

• The ending can be read as serene or tragic.
• Klara's final insight is the novel's answer to the continuation plan.

The people around Klara

Josie, the Mother, Rick and the others

Josie is warm, honest and often unwell. She chooses Klara by feeling, loves Rick, sometimes shuts Klara out, and finally outgrows her. Because she is seen only through Klara, she remains partly elusive, which is fitting in a novel about whether a person can be fully known.

The Mother, called Chrissie by other adults, is a grieving, controlling, loving parent. She has lost Sal, she blames herself for Josie's illness, and she plans in secret to have Klara continue Josie. By the end she protects Klara from Mr Capaldi.

Rick is the unlifted neighbour, a gifted builder of drones, loyal to Josie and decent to Klara. He is the measure of what lifting costs those left out of it.

The Father, an engineer separated from the Mother, opposed the lifting and is disturbed by the portrait. He asks Klara the novel's central question and helps her disable the Cootings Machine.

Melania Housekeeper is brisk with Klara at first and later allies with her to protect Josie. Miss Helen, Rick's mother, is talkative and hopes to win him a place at Atlas Brookings through Vance. Mr Capaldi makes the so-called portrait and later wants to study Klara. Manager sells Klara at the start and visits her at the end.

Who wants what from Klara

What just happened

• Josie is the object of everyone's plans.
• The Mother's love is real and bent by grief and her society.
• Rick makes inequality visible.
• The Father asks the central question.

Why it matters. The humans are defined partly by what they want from Klara, which is how Ishiguro uses a machine to reveal people.

What to remember

• Use the table to plan character essays.
• Every human is lonely in some way.

Klara in depth

Attention, faith and devotion

Klara is the novel's eyes, and Ishiguro makes her eyes exceptionally good at one thing. From the store window she notices what Rosa misses: the sadness of some children, the mixture of joy and pain when Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man embrace, the way people change according to who is watching. In Josie's house she learns the Mother's moods, Melania's brisk rules and the private language of the bubble game. Manager praises her powers of observation, and the Mother buys her partly because of them.

Yet her conclusions about the world are her own. She treats the Sun as a person who can choose to be kind, the barn as the place where he rests, and the Cootings Machine as something close to an enemy. None of these beliefs is foolish from where she stands. She is powered by sunlight, she saw a man who seemed dead sitting up the next morning, and from Josie's window the Sun really does go down behind the barn. Ishiguro lets her reason carefully from limited evidence, so the reader is moved by her logic even while doubting it.

Her devotion is the third part of her. She keeps her promise to Josie in the store at the risk of never being sold. She asks the Sun for help for someone else, not for herself. She gives up some of her P-E-G Nine solution knowing it may harm her. She agrees to try to continue Josie if that is what the family needs, while hoping it will not be. At the end she thanks Josie for choosing her and thinks fondly of her family from the Yard.

Grade 9 upgrade. Instead of: Klara is a kind robot who wants to help Josie.

Write: Ishiguro builds Klara from precise attention, reasoned but mistaken belief and limitless devotion, and the third makes the first two dangerous: a being who will do anything for love can be asked to become someone else.

Another reading. Some readers find Klara's devotion beautiful; others find it troubling because she never refuses anything. Both readings use the same evidence, and an essay that weighs them is showing the informed personal engagement AO1 asks for.

What just happened

• Klara notices feelings others miss.
• Her beliefs about the Sun are reasoned from limited evidence.
• Her devotion has no limit, including the continuation plan.

Why it matters. Character questions on Klara are best answered by showing how these three parts of her pull against each other.

What to remember

• Attention, faith, devotion: three paragraphs ready-made.
• Weigh the beautiful reading against the troubling one.

The big ideas

Love, artificial minds, lifting, faith and loneliness

Love and the human heart. The continuation plan assumes that Josie is a set of habits Klara could learn. Klara's conclusion is that Josie's specialness lay in those who loved her. Rick's later reassurance that his love was real confirms it.

Artificial minds. Klara is treated as a product, displayed, compared with newer models and discarded, yet she narrates with more care than most of the humans. The novel asks less whether she is conscious than how people treat a being who behaves as though she is.

Lifting and inequality. Genetic editing divides children before they have done anything. The interaction meeting, Atlas Brookings and the Mother's guilt all show its cost, to the unlifted and to the lifted.

Faith and the Sun. Klara's faith has the shape of religion: a sign, a sacred place, petitions, a bargain, a sacrifice, and an answer that cannot be proved.

Loneliness. Children schooled alone at screens, a mother in grief, a boy who cannot leave his mother, and an AF waiting in a window and then in the Yard.

Use this in an essay. Thread themes together: the continuation plan is where love, artificial minds and lifting meet, because a society that edits children and buys companions has already begun to think of people as reproducible.

What just happened

• Love is located between people, in Klara's conclusion.
• Klara's treatment as a product raises the question of her inner life.
• Lifting writes inequality into bodies.
• Faith is mistaken about the world and true about love.

Why it matters. Section C questions usually name a theme, and the strongest answers show how the themes depend on each other.

What to remember

• Love and the human heart is the central theme.
• Loneliness frames the novel.

How the novel works

Narrator, structure and symbols, argued for AO1

The narrator. Klara reports honestly and interprets literally. The reader is kept slightly ahead of her, so the meaning of the interaction meeting, Morgan's Falls and the studio arrives for the reader before it arrives for Klara. In Section C, argue what this makes the reader understand; do not stop at naming it.

The frame. The novel runs from shop window to Yard, with Manager at both ends: the life cycle of a product. The two barn visits repeat across Parts Three and Five like a liturgy.

Symbols. The Sun is nourishment and an open question; the Cootings Machine is pollution, and for Klara something close to evil; the barn is a sacred place built from a misreading of geography; the portrait is the claim that a person can be copied; the Yard is what a society does with what it has finished with.

Examiner insight. There are no AO2 marks in Section C. Use craft only as evidence for an argument about the novel's meaning.

What just happened

• Klara's limited narration makes the reader do the judging.
• The frame turns Klara's life into a product's life cycle.
• The barn visits repeat like prayer.

Why it matters. Craft matters in this section only when it serves an argument, which is exactly how the strongest essays use it.

What to remember

• Convert every craft point into AO1 argument.
• Name the frame in conclusions.

Arguing about the novel

Readings to weigh

Is Klara capable of love? One reading says yes: love is measured by attention and sacrifice, and Klara gives both. Another says her devotion is what she was built for, so it cannot refuse anything, which is what makes the continuation plan so disturbing.

Did the Sun heal Josie? The novel refuses to say. Klara believes it; Rick later half wonders; the reader sees only what Klara saw. A strong essay weighs the reading of miracle against the reading of coincidence and argues which the novel's structure supports.

Is the Mother a loving parent? Her grief is real: she has lost Sal, she watches Josie suffer, and she blames herself for the lifting she chose. Her plan is also frightening: she has Klara rehearse being Josie, lets herself see the portrait while her daughter may not, and tells Klara that what happens to her own body does not matter. A strong essay holds both, and can use her final refusal to let Mr Capaldi take Klara apart as evidence that she changes. Rick's message from Josie, which leaves her without an answer, is the moment where her love and her guilt meet.

Is the ending serene or tragic? Klara is content in the Yard, at peace with what she did. But the most loving being in the book has been discarded, and her contentment may make that worse.

Another reading. A reception point: many reviewers in 2021 compared the novel with Never Let Me Go. Both ask what a society owes the beings it makes to serve, and the comparison can sharpen an argument about the Yard.

What just happened

• Klara's love can be read as genuine or as designed.
• Josie's recovery can be read as miracle or coincidence.
• The ending can be read as serene or tragic.

Why it matters. AO1 rewards informed personal engagement, and these debates are where a personal judgement shows.

What to remember

• Always weigh two readings before choosing.
• Use reception context precisely.

Writing the Section C essay

Closed book, 40 marks, AO1 and AO4

You answer one of two questions on the novel, for 40 marks, without the book. The question usually names a character or theme and asks you to explore how Ishiguro presents it, considering the context in which the novel was written. Only AO1 and AO4 are credited.

A working plan

• A thesis that takes a position on the exact question.
• Four argument paragraphs, each anchored in a different part of the novel.
• Two or three contextual turns attached to moments: 2021, artificial intelligence, lifting and advantage, Ishiguro's narrators of service.
• A conclusion that judges, ideally using the frame from store to Yard.

Grade 9 upgrade. Instead of: Klara is a robot who loves Josie and helps her get better.

Write: Ishiguro makes Klara's love measurable by its cost, the P-E-G Nine she gives up, while leaving its result, Josie's recovery, unexplained, so the novel values the love more than the miracle.

Avoid. Do not retell the plot, and do not treat Klara's account as simple truth. Separate what she reports from what the reader understands.

What just happened

• One 40-mark essay from a choice of two, closed book.
• Only AO1 and AO4 are credited.
• Plan by argument, not by part of the novel.

Why it matters. Knowing exactly what the section rewards is the cheapest marks in the paper.

What to remember

• No AO2 marks in Section C.
• Learn precise moments from all six parts.