Klara and the Sun: 40-Mark Essay
A complete Section C essay sustains one judgement across selected evidence and relevant context. Practise the decisions that turn a plan into a precise, qualified argument.
Know the Section C contract
In Section C, you answer one of two questions on the modern prose text you have studied. The response is closed book and worth 40 marks:
| Assessment objective | What the essay must demonstrate |
|---|---|
| AO1 | Close knowledge, a critical style, informed personal engagement and relevant examples. |
| AO4 | Understanding of relationships between the novel and relevant contexts. |
AO1 and AO4 have equal weight in one holistic award out of 40; they are not separately awarded subscores.
AO2 is not assessed. Narrative viewpoint, structure or another writerly choice may help you explain an interpretation, but naming or analysing a method carries no separate AO2 reward in this section.
The two assessed strands work together. An accurate scene supplies AO1 knowledge; a relevant context can then sharpen what that scene suggests. For example, Klara's position in the store can support an argument about attention and hope, while the context of commercially produced AI companions can reveal that these qualities are also being displayed and sold as solutions to loneliness.
Pearson marks the response positively and holistically. Although AO1 and AO4 are equally weighted, the examiner awards one best-fit mark out of 40 rather than constructing two visible subtotals. Exact quotation is not compulsory: accurate references to Parts, events, actions and characters can demonstrate secure closed-book knowledge.
Source A
Klara and the Sun
By Kazuo Ishiguro
[1] ‘You still don’t quite understand,’ Mr Capaldi said. Although he was standing there before me, his voice seemed to come from the edges of my vision, because all I could see still were the Mother’s eyes. ‘Let me explain to her, Chrissie. It’ll be easier coming from me. Klara, we’re not asking you to train the new Josie. We’re asking you to become her. That Josie you saw up there, as you noticed, is empty. If the day comes – I hope it doesn’t, but if it does – we want you to inhabit that Josie up there with everything you’ve learned.’
[2] ‘You wish me to inhabit her?’
[3] ‘Chrissie chose you carefully with that in mind. She believed you to be the one best equipped to learn Josie. Not just superficially, but deeply, entirely. Learn her till there’s no difference between the first Josie and the second.’
[4] ‘Henry’s telling you this now,’ the Mother said, and suddenly she was no longer partitioned, ‘like it was carefully planned. But it was never like that. I didn’t even know if I believed any of this would work. Maybe once I believed it could. But seeing that portrait up there, I don’t know any more.’
[5] ‘So you see what’s being asked of you, Klara,’ Mr Capaldi said. ‘You’re not being required simply to mimic Josie’s outward behavior. You’re being asked to continue her for Chrissie. And for everyone who loves Josie.’
[6] ‘But is that going to be possible?’ the Mother said. ‘Could she really continue Josie for me?’
[7] ‘Yes, she can,’ Mr Capaldi said. ‘And now Klara’s completed the survey up there, I’ll be able to give you scientific proof of it. Proof she’s already well on her way to accessing quite comprehensively all of Josie’s impulses and desires. The trouble is, Chrissie, you’re like me. We’re both of us sentimental. We can’t help it. Our generation still carry the old feelings. A part of us refuses to let go. The part that wants to keep believing there’s something unreachable inside each of us. Something that’s unique and won’t transfer. But there’s nothing like that, we know that now. You know that. For people our age it’s a hard one to let go. We have to let it go, Chrissie. There’s nothing there. Nothing inside Josie that’s beyond the Klaras of this world to continue. The second Josie won’t be a copy. She’ll be the exact same and you’ll have every right to love her just as you love Josie now. It’s not faith you need. Only rationality. I had to do it, it was tough but now it works for me just fine. And it will for you.’
Notes
Part Four. The numbers label the supplied paragraphs.
NovaLearn draft: “Technology was advancing. Capaldi wanted to replace Josie.”
NovaLearn context note: treating personality as reproducible data can make technological continuation seem possible.
Govern the response with a thesis
The store-to-Yard plan from the previous lesson becomes useful only when one judgement governs the whole response. A thesis for a Section C essay should:
- answer the exact character, relationship, idea or stated view;
- indicate how the answer develops across the novel;
- preserve a meaningful qualification rather than becoming absolute.
Consider a practice focus on Klara's service. First decide what the scenes collectively suggest:
- In the store, Klara's capacity to observe makes her desirable, but her future still depends on being selected as a product.
- At Josie's home, service gives her responsibility and opportunities to act, yet Mother's tests and Capaldi's plan make her knowledge available for others to use.
- By the Yard, Klara believes her service has had value, while the family no longer needs the companion whose purpose has been fulfilled.
A governing thesis could therefore read:
Klara's service gives her increasing purpose and agency because her attention develops into care, faith and sacrifice. However, the movement from store display to Yard obsolescence suggests that the humans value this devotion most while it is useful; Klara's own satisfaction prevents that conditional value from making her life simply meaningless.
This thesis does not predict every paragraph. It establishes a line that later evidence can test. A response could put more weight on Klara's agency, the family's genuine affection or the exploitation of purchased care, provided it keeps returning to the exact focus.
Context belongs inside that line. A reading through planned obsolescence, for example, sharpens the store-to-Yard pattern: Klara is not accidentally forgotten after a random career, but belongs to a product system in which newer models and changing human needs make replacement expected. That lens strengthens a critical reading without cancelling Klara's own account of fulfilment.
The selections move from purchase to Klara’s recollection of sacrifice and the Yard.
Source A
Klara and the Sun
By Kazuo Ishiguro
[1] The Mother considered this. Then she said, ‘Well, Klara. Since you appear to know so much about it. Will you please reproduce for me Josie’s walk? Will you do that for me? Right now? My daughter’s walk?’
[2] Behind the Mother’s shoulder, I saw Manager’s lips part, as though about to speak. But she said nothing. Instead, meeting my gaze, she gave me the smallest of nods.
[3] So I started to walk. I realized that, as well as the Mother – and of course Josie – the whole store was now watching and listening. I stepped beneath the arch, onto the Sun’s patterns spread across the floor. Then I went in the direction of the B3s standing mid-store, and the Glass Display Trolley. I did all I could to reproduce Josie’s walk just as I’d seen it, that first time after she’d got out of the taxi, when Rosa and I were in the window, then four days later, when she’d come towards the window after the Mother had removed her hand from her shoulder, then finally as I’d seen her a moment ago, hurrying to me with relieved happiness in her eyes.
[4] When I reached the Glass Display Trolley I started to go around it, taking care not to lose the character of Josie’s walk even as I tried not to brush against the boy B3 standing beside the trolley.
[5] But as I was about to start on the return lap, I glanced up and caught sight of the Mother, and something in what I saw made me stop. She was still watching me carefully, but it was as if her gaze was now focused straight through me, as if I was the glass in the window and she was trying to see something a long way behind it. I remained there beside the Glass Display Trolley, one foot poised, heel off the floor, and there was a strange stillness in the store. Then Manager said:
[6] ‘As you see, Klara has extraordinary observational ability. I’ve never known one like her.’
[7] ‘Mom.’ This time Josie’s voice was hushed. ‘Mom. Please.’
[8] ‘Very well. We’ll take her.’
[9] Josie came hurrying to me. She put her arms around me and held me. When I gazed over the child’s head, I saw Manager smiling happily, and the Mother, her face drawn and serious, looking down to search in her shoulder bag.
Notes
Part One. The numbers label the supplied paragraphs.
Source B
Klara and the Sun
By Kazuo Ishiguro
[1] I thought when I first came here that the Yard was untidy, but I’ve now come to appreciate its good order. The initial impression, I realized, was due to many of the objects here having in themselves an untidy identity – with the remains of severed cables protruding or with dented grille panels. On closer observation it becomes clear how hard the yardmen have worked to place each piece of machinery, crate or bundle into orderly rows, so that a visitor walking down the long passages that have been created in this way – even if that visitor must be careful not to trip on a rod or wire – will be able to take in the objects one by one.
[2] Because of the wide sky and lack of tall objects, I become quickly aware of any visitors in the Yard. I spot their figures even if they are far in the distance and only small shapes moving among the rows. But visitors aren’t frequent, and when I hear human voices, they most often belong to the yardmen calling to each other.
Notes
Part Six. The numbers label the supplied paragraphs.
Source C
Klara and the Sun
By Kazuo Ishiguro
[1] ‘Then tell me, Klara. Have you all this time – until you came here, I mean – have you all this time been with the people you went to from the store? Forgive my asking, but I no longer have easy access to such information.’
[2] ‘Yes, of course. I was with Josie all the time. Until she went to college.’
[3] ‘So it was successful. A successful home.’
[4] ‘Yes. I believe I gave good service and prevented Josie from becoming lonely.’
Notes
Part Six. The numbers label the supplied paragraphs.
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