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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Little Foxes · wishes, percentages and who can make a bargain

Trace the movement from shared celebration to unequal negotiation · Distinguish the family stake from the entire mill arrangement · Analyse Regina’s tactical use of an absent person’s silence

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · 2027-P3-FOXES / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B
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

  • Trace the movement from shared celebration to unequal negotiation
  • Distinguish the family stake from the entire mill arrangement
  • Analyse Regina’s tactical use of an absent person’s silence

Little Foxes · from a wish to a demand

  • 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.

Not all requests are heard alike

Read the family’s wishes and the return to profit shares, printed pp.15–19, reader scans 8–10.

  1. 1. How does this part of the act expose unequal power inside an apparently shared celebration?

    Compare after trying

    Regina invites wishes as though the new wealth will make everyone’s future available. Birdie’s picture of Lionnet and objection to wasteful shooting nevertheless continue after others have stopped giving her full attention.

    The return to shares brings a different kind of speech, one backed by needed money and a threat to the arrangement. I read the contrast as a test of who can turn a desire into an effective demand, rather than simply a catalogue of what each person wants.

    Why this response fits

    • Use attention and interruption as evidence.
    • Connect the celebration with the emerging bargain.

Interpreting a silence for profit

Read the discussion of Horace’s unanswered business letters and negotiated share, printed pp.19–23, reader scans 10–12.

  1. 1. How does Regina use the absence of Horace in her negotiation?

    Compare after trying

    His uncommitted replies leave a gap which Regina fills with an explanation about bargaining for more. That explanation places a price on her willingness to persuade him, while Ben’s response recognises her interest in the argument.

    The larger proposed family portion and deadline show that the tactic changes the discussion, but not that Horace has agreed or that she has correctly described his mind. I find her agency forceful and limited by dependence on money and consent which are not yet in the room.

    Why this response fits

    • Distinguish an effective tactic from a verified account of motive.
    • Keep the family share and the entire venture separate.

An invitation to wish does not give every wish equal force

After the visitor leaves, imagined pleasures make profit personal. Ben wants a stable, Regina a metropolitan social life, and Oscar values property and shooting. Birdie asks for Lionnet restored and for less killing when others need food. The stage directions make her continuing speech and the others’ withdrawal of attention visible. Her concerns are not all given the power of a proposal at the bargaining table. The transition from an apparently shared future to dismissal shows why an invitation to speak is different from a practical ability to have a request considered.

Be precise about the money being divided

Marshall is to provide four hundred thousand dollars for forty-nine per cent, while the family provides two hundred and twenty-five thousand for fifty-one per cent and local advantages. Horace’s proposed seventy-five thousand is one third of the family contribution, not one third of the entire cost or an automatic one-third ownership of the whole mill. The dialogue’s dispute concerns the division within the family stake. Knowing that distinction supports a literary reading of control and dependence; it does not require treating the scene as advice about how a real partnership or present-day business law works.

A silence becomes a resource for someone else’s demand

The others have letters from Horace but no answer about the venture. Regina proposes that his silence may be a trader’s attempt to obtain a larger share; Ben recognises her own interest in that explanation. Act I does not yet establish Horace’s actual reason. Her suggestion pressures the brothers because they want family control and need the missing funds. The eventual offer increases his proposed part of the family stake to forty per cent, with a deadline, and the extra comes from Oscar’s portion. The moment reveals tactical agency without making every person equally able to bargain or every claimed motive a verified fact.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does Regina’s explanation of Horace’s silence establish his actual motive in Act I?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Correct “Horace is offered forty per cent of the whole mill in Act I”.

Show the worked solution
  1. The family’s controlling stake is fifty-one per cent of the venture.
  2. The argument reallocates parts within that family stake.

Answer The scene offers a larger family portion, not an unqualified forty per cent of the entire mill.

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.

1 · Guided

How does Birdie’s wish differ from an effective demand?

Give me a hint

Follow who continues to receive attention.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Her descriptions keep developing.
  2. Others return to their own plans and dismiss the request.

The staging shows that permission to speak does not guarantee power over the result.

Look for these in your work

  • Use divided attention
  • Explain the inequality
2 · Independent

State the financial distinction without a false percentage.

Give me a hint

Name the whole before naming a fraction.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The family has a fifty-one per cent stake.
  2. Horace’s proposed contribution is a third of the family’s funding.

A claim about his negotiated family portion should not silently become a claim about ownership of the entire mill.

Look for these in your work

  • Identify the denominator
  • Keep the two arrangements separate
3 · Transfer

What does Ben’s response to Regina reveal?

Give me a hint

Compare her attributed motive with the interest he identifies.

Compare my reasoning
  1. She speaks as if protecting Horace’s bargaining position.
  2. Ben locates her own wish for a larger share.

The exchange makes interpretation itself part of the negotiation, while Horace’s actual motive remains unconfirmed in Act I.

Look for these in your work

  • Use both positions
  • Retain the absent voice

Common mistakes

  • Do not confuse one third of the family contribution with one third of the total venture.
  • Do not turn the negotiated deadline into proof that Horace has already agreed or paid.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does Regina’s explanation of Horace’s silence establish his actual motive in Act I?

Compare with the explanation

No; it is her tactical explanation, and Ben recognises that it serves her own demand.

An absent person’s intention cannot be certified merely because another character claims to interpret it.

After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.

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Make it stick

Does Regina’s explanation of Horace’s silence establish his actual motive in Act I?

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.

Keep learning World Literature

Course scope and assessment

238 original lessons provide 714 guided, independent and transfer tasks, plus 431 reading-tracker and long-response prompts. Twenty skill and route entries, three year-specific Cherry Orchard entries, two Anowa entries, three Crocodiles entries, one 2027 Little Foxes entry, two year-specific Volume 1 poetry entries, one historical 2025 Volume 2 poetry entry and three year-specific Volume 2 story entries link teaching. Anowa has ten lessons through the Prologue and all three phases, with thirty staged tasks and ten original developed responses. Complete primary reading locators support analysis of the contested community frame, partnership, enslavement, the children, remembered dream, separation and ending. The protected play is linked rather than reproduced; editorial BECE material is not reused. Both eligible 2025–2026 Anowa rows link the whole-play pathway. Twenty-eight lessons teach the Author’s Note and all six country chapters of In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, with eighty-four staged tasks and sixty original developed responses. Four workshops teach passage analysis, whole-book argument, layered voice and retrieval/revision. All three complete 2025–2027 book entries link the whole-book pathway; the existing supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. The public reflowed reading is linked rather than reproduced, with edition limits explicit. Twenty-two Little Foxes lessons teach all three acts for 2027, with sixty-six staged tasks and forty-eight original developed responses. Hospitality, silenced voices, the mill, financial negotiation, the proposed marriage, Horace’s return and refusal, the bonds, Birdie’s disclosure, withheld help, the final bargain and Alexandra’s decision are taught through actual stage directions and dialogue locators. Four workshops develop passage analysis, whole-play argument, stagecraft and corrective retrieval. SET-2027-2 links the full sequence; the existing supplemental route remains available without inflating counted requirements. The protected acting script is linked rather than reproduced; exact centre-edition wording and revisions must be checked. The Cherry Orchard has an 18-lesson whole-text sequence with five actual Julius West excerpts and three argument models. The 2026–2027 poetry option has teaching for all fourteen members, three complete public-domain poems and close-reading, comparison and retrieval workshops. Twenty-four lessons teach all ten 2026–2028 Stories of Ourselves Volume 2 members, with named reading and writing sequences and evidence, passage-context, essay and ten-member retrieval workshops. Two complete public-domain narratives, nineteen actual prose extracts and Katie’s complete twenty-line poem within Besant’s prose story support close reading and whole-story writing. The Shrinking Shoe follows the original 1895 prose and its five sections; the embedded poem is not a Paper 2 set poem. All three eligible ten-story selection rows link the complete pathway. Wodehouse and Woolf use brief quotations and original commentary with complete reading sources; their full texts are not reproduced here. Twelve lessons teach twelve compulsory 2028–2030 Volume 3 poems, with thirty-six staged tasks and twenty-four developed-response prompts. The Dutt and Kingsley excerpts and Cissoko’s exact translation still need verified reading and teaching; full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so all three complete poetry rows remain unlinked. Fourteen lessons teach seven 2029–2030 Volume 3 stories with thirty-five developed-response prompts. Twelve actual older primary excerpts support four stories; Achebe, Desai and Danticat use original commentary with complete primary reading links rather than reproducing their protected texts. A separate partial-member pathway supports The Necklace, The Model Millionaire, Sultana’s Dream, The Interlopers, The Sacrificial Egg, Sale and New York Day Women without linking either complete ten-story row. The three other members and full-selection workshops remain unfinished. Read the full centre-selected works and protected anthology; check edition differences, including Weissenhorn’s older Necklace translation. The historical 2025 poetry pathway teaches all fourteen members through eighteen lessons, fifty-four staged tasks and fifty-one developed-response models. Three complete public-domain poems remain printed with line breaks; eleven protected poems use complete primary reading links and original commentary. Four workshops teach close analysis, whole-poem argument, preparation comparisons and specific retrieval of all fourteen members. The complete SET-2025-5 option links this sequence; the historical supplemental route remains without increasing counted requirements. Archival Cambridge and WJEC papers supply primary poems, not reused questions or later-year assessment rules. Centre-edition differences remain explicit. Forty-six lessons provide original teaching and practice for nine historical 2025 story members: The Doll’s House, The Gold Watch, A Visit, A Walk to the Jetty, In the Mountains, Mrs. Sen’s, Promenade, The Plantation and The Paper Menagerie. Together they provide one hundred and thirty-eight staged tasks and one hundred and one developed-response models. A Visit uses complete primary reading visually checked across printed pages 306–310. Promenade follows the complete seven-page narrative on printed pages 416–422; its four lessons trace bodily control, wordless meetings, the interrupted circuit and changed final walk. Mrs. Sen’s has six lessons through the complete story, with eighteen staged tasks and thirteen developed-response models. Teaching follows the collection scan from its unnumbered opening through printed p.135, with food, letters, recordings, separate journeys and the changed final care arrangement. The Plantation has five lessons, fifteen staged tasks and eleven developed-response models through all four numbered sections, visually checked against printed pages 423–429 through the final dawn bird-call. In the Mountains has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the final invitation to eat. The complete publisher transcription supports scene-based reading; automated-text errors and subscription access remain explicit, and original printed pages were not visually verified. A Walk to the Jetty has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the complete six-page retype’s final berth. Reader annotations and the appended question are separate; the complete publisher version has wording differences, so exact quotations require the approved edition. The centre edition remains required for exact quotations. The protected stories are linked, not reproduced. The partial member pathway is supplemental; Words and full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so SET-2025-6 stays unlinked. Fifteen year-specific prescribed-work entries remain unfinished; complete centre-selected coursework reading also needs substantive text-specific teaching. The 51-entry map is a StudyForA preparation map, not official numbered syllabus sections or a percentage of student mastery. Written practice is self-checked and is not officially marked. Full timed papers and qualified literature-teacher assessment remain unfinished. Fictional exercises are labelled separately from actual excerpts; alternative well-supported readings can be valid. Centre-authenticated coursework and Cambridge moderation are separate from self-check practice.

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