Little Foxes · Alexandra’s future discussed in her absence
Connect family control of money with the proposed marriage · Distinguish a negotiation between adults from the young woman’s consent · Read the trip to Baltimore through competing accounts of care
Section SET-2027-2 · 2027 · Paper 3 · Little Foxes
Exam scope and assessment notes
0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2027. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching for Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, listed as Little Foxes in Cambridge’s 2027 Paper 3 selection. Twenty-two lessons teach all three acts of Little Foxes and four whole-play workshops, with sixty-six staged tasks and forty-eight original developed-response models. The complete SET-2027-2 option links this teaching for 2027; the existing supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. Complete primary reading, qualified teacher review and full timed calibration remain separate requirements. Read the complete unabridged centre-selected script. The linked public scan is a Dramatists Play Service acting edition with printed pages through 79; reader scan numbers and printed page numbers differ. Check exact wording, revisions, blocking and punctuation against the centre edition. The protected play and its page images are linked, not reproduced here. Questions and models are original self-review and do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Other well-supported interpretations can be valid. Qualified literature-teacher review and calibrated full papers remain unfinished. For 2027, Paper 3 is closed book: 90 minutes, one extract response and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each. This play is not a prescribed 2025 or 2026 Paper 3 option, nor a 2028–2030 Paper 3 prose option. It is excluded from 2027 coursework because it is on that year’s Paper 3 list; private candidates cannot enter 0408. Analyse the play’s racism, unequal relationships and domestic violence critically rather than adopting a character’s claims as the author’s or a general truth.
Before you begin
- Read the named scenes in the complete centre-selected script; read all three acts before attempting the whole-play workshops. Reader scans are two-page views; printed page locators refer to the linked acting edition.
- Distinguish stage directions, observable action, a character’s claim and an inference about intention. A performance can realise the written directions in different ways.
- The teaching sequence does not prove individual mastery. Read the complete play, write your own responses and seek qualified literature-teacher feedback; full timed calibration remains unfinished.
Work on paper. Try each question before revealing help, and explain why your method works.
Quick readiness check
What should support a claim about a literary text?
What you will learn
- Connect family control of money with the proposed marriage
- Distinguish a negotiation between adults from the young woman’s consent
- Read the trip to Baltimore through competing accounts of care
Little Foxes · a person beyond the family bargain
- Read the named scenes in the complete script before answering. The protected play is not reproduced here.
- Printed page locators refer to the linked acting edition. Use the act and scene event when your centre edition differs.
- Write a developed answer before opening the original model. Use brief checked wording from your copy and explain the effect of dialogue, movement or timing.
Original self-review for whole-play preparation, not official Cambridge questions, marks, coursework or a calibrated paper. These lessons do not replace the complete play, the learner’s own writing or qualified assessment; they do not certify individual mastery.
A future made negotiable
Read the proposed marriage, Regina’s answer and the young people’s return, printed pp.23–25, reader scans 12–13.
1. How does the dialogue make the proposed marriage part of a struggle over property and authority?
Compare after trying
The proposal follows Oscar’s objection to losing part of his financial interest. Ben’s account of where the money will eventually go makes the younger generation a way to keep the adult bargain within the family.
Alexandra is absent while the plan is discussed, and Regina’s qualified promise is not the girl’s acceptance. I read the apparently affectionate language about a handsome pair against this timing and calculation, which leave the person concerned outside the decision.
Why this response fits
- Use the proposal’s position in the financial discussion.
- Keep adult promises separate from Alexandra’s consent.
For whose sake?
Read the announcement of the Baltimore trip, objections and instructions, printed pp.25–26, reader scans 13 right–14 left.
1. How does the exchange complicate Regina’s claim that the journey is for Horace’s good?
Compare after trying
The audience has heard why his money is urgently wanted before the trip is announced. Alexandra’s delight and the objections from Addie and Birdie make the family instruction meet different expectations about care.
Alexandra says she cannot pressure him if it would hurt him, and Regina answers by claiming the authority to judge his condition. I find the scene tense because care and obedience are being interpreted by people with different interests and unequal power, while Horace himself remains absent.
Why this response fits
- Use the audience’s prior knowledge.
- Distinguish competing claims from an independently established medical judgement.
A young person becomes part of the financial settlement
Ben answers Oscar’s loss of a portion by imagining money remaining within the family through Alexandra and Leo. Marriage is discussed as an arrangement which could compensate an adult and preserve a stake. Alexandra is not in the room for that discussion, and the proposal is not an engagement she accepts. Regina promises serious consideration while keeping room to manoeuvre. The dialogue’s jokes about first cousins coexist with the calculation; they do not establish the younger people’s consent. A response should track who gains bargaining power by making another person’s future negotiable.
Small responses qualify the picture of a suitable pair
Oscar describes the pair’s appearance as evidence in favour of the match. Later, Alexandra’s anger at Leo’s account of the drive and her report that he beats the horses challenge that attractive surface. Birdie’s concern is therefore not merely a reluctance to let any young person grow up. Nor is Leo’s prior taking of bank money a theft whose full later consequences can already be supplied from Act I. Use what the scene has actually established, and keep the marriage as an adult plan which meets resistance rather than a completed family event.
The language of independence can serve another purpose
Regina sends Alexandra alone to Baltimore to bring Horace home, although the girl recalls that an earlier request to go had been refused. Addie and Birdie question the arrangement. Regina describes responsibility and her husband’s welfare, but the audience has already heard the business urgency behind the journey. Alexandra’s first delight assumes her father is well enough to return; the instruction to pressure him creates a different issue. Her refusal to do something she thinks would hurt him introduces a moral limit to obedience. The scene does not require readers to decide that every expression of care is either wholly true or wholly false.
Sources for this lesson
- Cambridge World Literature 0408 · 2025–2027 · Version 2
- Cambridge 0408 · revised 2025–2027 component weightings
- Cambridge World Literature 0408 · 2028–2030 · Version 1
- Hellman · The Little Foxes · public Dramatists Play Service scan, 40 two-page reader views
- The Little Foxes · playwright and script record · Concord Theatricals
Pause and explain
Does the Act I marriage discussion establish Alexandra’s consent to marry Leo?
Worked example
Qualify “Alexandra chooses to marry Leo during the family meeting”.
Show the worked solution
- The meeting discusses a possible marriage while she is away.
- She later expresses a firm refusal when Birdie warns her.
Answer A plan made about someone is not that person’s agreement.
Try a topic test
Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.
Test this topic →From guided practice to a new situation
Write your answer and reasoning first. Use a hint only if you are stuck. The model solution is for self-checking; your written work is not automatically marked.
Why does marriage enter after Oscar loses a portion?
Give me a hint
Follow the proposed compensation.
Compare my reasoning
- His share is reduced in the family negotiation.
- Ben imagines money returning through the next generation.
The sequence makes the young people’s relationship a means of managing adults’ property interests.
Look for these in your work
- Connect the order of topics
- Distinguish proposal and consent
How does the horse report challenge appearance?
Give me a hint
Compare the adult description with Alexandra’s experience.
Compare my reasoning
- Oscar praises the pair as visually suitable.
- Alexandra reports cruelty on the drive.
The attractive public match is tested by behaviour that the description leaves out.
Look for these in your work
- Use contrary evidence
- Avoid an unearned idealisation
Explain the change in Alexandra’s response to the journey.
Give me a hint
Compare delight with the later condition she voices.
Compare my reasoning
- She first assumes her father’s return means improvement.
- She refuses pressure which she believes would harm him.
Affection becomes a reason to question obedience rather than a resource Regina can simply command.
Look for these in your work
- Trace the change
- Use the stated moral limit
Common mistakes
- Do not make a proposed marriage a completed engagement or wedding.
- Do not present Horace’s medical fitness as something the absent audience has independently established.
What can you explain now?
Does the Act I marriage discussion establish Alexandra’s consent to marry Leo?
Compare with the explanation
No; adults discuss the plan without her, and she later rejects the idea.
Family calculation, a proposal and the young woman’s consent are different things.
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Make it stick
Does the Act I marriage discussion establish Alexandra’s consent to marry Leo?
If you needed the solution, close it and solve the problem again from a blank page. A correct answer is stronger when you can explain the reason for each step.