“A Devilish Diamond”: British Empire and the Moonstone’s Curse

            The presence of imperialism in Wilkie Collin’s novel, The Moonstone, is evident through his depictions of India and the many symbols used to represent it. In the nineteenth century, the British Empire possessed almost absolute control over India – especially in the latter half of the century when the British government took over entirely. As a result of this evident schism in authority, Britain often used its power to take great advantage of India by using it primarily as a commodity and to enhance the empire’s dominance. Collins’ narrative is centralized around a valuable Indian Diamond, the Moonstone, coveted in India as a spiritual symbol, and, conversely, in Britain as a source of wealth and status. The diamond conceived and used in this way by England is not dissimilar to the way in which India was used by the British Empire. This correlation then leads us to believe that the Moonstone is a symbol for India. However, the gem does not directly correlate with the country after it is extracted from the sacred space: when it is in its native land, the Moonstone is a highly respected symbol, but when it is stolen and taken to England, it resembles Britain’s view of India as a profitable resource that can be manipulated and altered to reshape it in a way that is most pleasing to the British. What should we make of the curse that wreaks havoc through John Herncastle’s family then? It is fair to say that India, at this time, was cursed by the oppression it suffered under the command of Britain. The curse, thereafter, is symbolic of the oppression inflicted upon it by the British Empire. Wilkie Collins’ vivid reminders of India and anything that descends from it illustrate the denigrating and belittling perception of this abused country.

            The Moonstone opens with a violent scene of John Herncastle, soldier for the British Army and uncle to Miss Rachel Verinder, killing three Brahmin guards who were protecting the precious stone in its spiritual temple. After the fight is won, Herncastle acquires the diamond and returns home to England with it. In the novel’s prologue, it is said that this “Yellow Diamond” was “set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon,” and superstition “represents it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, […] growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon” (Collins 1). This depiction of the diamond indicates a vulnerability to exterior influences; despite its own power, the Moonstone can be harmed and changed by its possessor, which in the case of Collins’ novel is England. Though it would seem blasphemous to refer to England as a deity, or even for it to be represented by a deity, England certainly believed itself to be at as high a ranking as this. So too did they believe that India was simply a land that they could take ownership of for pure profit and personal benefit. Within this context, England is the deity adorned by the Moonstone, literally worn by British royalty, and therefore the diamond is susceptible to the influence of England’s dominant power. To get a better understanding of the ways in which England achieved such domination and influence over India, it is important that we first examine the history between these two subjects.

In the seventeenth century, The British Empire established the East India Company to pursue trade with South and South East Asia. But over the course of many years, it transformed into something much more than that: it became “involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism” (Encyclopedia Britannica), it took “control of Indian states where a local ruler had died without an heir,” it became a violent “military operation” (McNamara), and so on. We begin to see the parallels between the Moonstone being removed from India on account of its profitability,and also in how India came to be exploited. The stone’s spiritual value immediately begins to disintegrate upon Herncastle’s unjust acquisition of it because, in the hands of the Englishman, it meant nothing more than money and status and was frivolously passed along to unfit possessors, none of whom respected it accurately.  Thus, its “lustre” lessened as predicted in the prologue.

            Pertaining to such denigration of India and its descendants, our first encounter with the “jugglers” describes the three men in an objectifying manner that also highlights their foreignness. The encounter occurs when narrator Gabriel Betteredge discovers them outside of the Verinder house where he works: “Going round the terrace, I found three mahogany-coloured Indians in white linen frocks and trousers, looking up at the house” (Collins 16).  Betteredge directly refers to the Indians as an expensive and exotic wood that could only be grown in foreign countries far from England, much like the Moonstone. It had to be transported from its origin after being stolen, and is now alien in its current setting of England. During the Victorian era, the Indian economy collapsed due to the “constant process of exploitation,” directly resulting from the schemes of the British Empire. Not only is it a reality in The Moonstone that the diamond be handled and viewed as money, the entire relationship between India and England was established so that British merchants could make a fortune from India’s goods. The decline of the Indian economy was a consequence of the British usage of “India as a producer of raw materials as well as a market for finished goods. Thus not only was there an exploitation of the country's natural resources but also immense pressure on the Indian indigenous market which was unable to compete with the superior quality of the finished goods imported from Britain” (IndiaNetzone). Here we are simultaneously reminded that India was both exhausted of its goods and also expected to adopt British customs in order to become like them – to be more suited for Britain’s use. (More on this later.)

Gabriel Betteredge also describes the Indian men’s dress in the quote above, “white linen frocks,” indicating a separation between them and the rest of the familiar and agreeable English surroundings. The “little delicate-looking light-haired English boy” who accompanies the men emphasizes this stark contrast (16). Collins makes a distinct change in diction here by using soft and delicate words in the description of the English child for the sake of showing the narrator’s implicit bias. It is this distinction between the white superiors and the non-white inferiors that illustrates the divide created by the power of the British Empire.

As he often does, Betteredge proceeds to make rather contradictory and controversial statements: “I am generally […] the last person in the world to distrust another person because he happens to be a few shades darker than myself. But the best of us have our weaknesses – and my weakness, when I know a family plate-basket to be out on a pantry-table, is to be instantly reminded of that basket by the sight of a strolling stranger whose manners are superior to my own” (16). Though he tries to be tidy and careful about it, he stills succeeds in making a racist implication by recognizing that the three Indian men are more suspicious than the standard passerby on account of their darker complexion and foreign appearance. Betteredge’s statement also proposes his belief that they are, in turn, more capable of committing a crime, such as thievery, than any other delicate English person by saying that his immediate instinct and assumption was that he needed to protect the Verinder house and the possessions within it. (Ironic? Yes.) When the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that these men were not simply “jugglers” who had stopped by to show off their tricks – which, by the way, seems to be the only identity that Betteredge and the other characters can give them – they came in search of the Moonstone, with the objective to retrieve it and bring it back to India.

At the Verinder house where the Moonstone resides for a short time, the stone is referred to in a multitude of instances as a negative entity – the characters believe that the inanimate object carries evil intentions within it, the same way that people or, even more prominently, demons do. Gabriel Betteredge often attributes such characteristics to the stone: “There you have the portrait of the man before you, as in a picture: a character that braved everything; and a face, handsome as it was, that looked possessed by the devil” (31). Here he is referring to Herncastle, or as he likes to call him “the Honourable John,” and his murdering of Brahmins as means to steal the Moonstone. This act is portrayed as a heroic one, despite its blatantly horrific nature, and the victim, which is the diamond, is pitted as the devil.

We see this same kind of juxtaposition of good versus evil, gentle England versus the invasive Moonstone, British Empire versus India, again and again: “[H]ere was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond” (33). The irony, especially of this statement, is strikingly obvious when we involve the history of imperialistic Britain; it was the British who involved themselves in India’s affairs, even after the ruler stated that he did not want to enact trade with them. With all the knowledge we currently have about this relationship, we are able to identify how the empire crept up on India and ultimately overthrew its original government and enforced their own. This reveals the opposite of what Betteredge believes of the Moonstone and its evil nature, thus exhibiting the false portrayal of the two countries.

It is only expected of humans to defend their native land; however, it is absolutely out of the question to say that John Herncastle did not conceive how criminal and wrong his actions were – robbing another land of a sacred stone, a highly respected religious symbol, for the sake of wealth is overtly cruel.  His fellow Englishmen prided him in what they classify as his successes. The real diamond, which Collins based his fiction on, called the Koh-i-Noor, was taken from India and given to Britain’s monarch, Queen Victoria, as a gift. Because it was not a very impressive sight to the English peoples – yellow tinted and dim – Price Albert ordered that the diamond be cut and refined, then placed in the queen’s crown and various other wardrobe items. One of the largest diamonds in the world, originally 186-carats, was then reduced to 105-carats under the supervision of the British royalty (Streeter). This history of the diamond conforms to the idea that the empire felt entitled to refine India, the same way it did the Moonstone, in order for it to appear more pleasing to them and resemble something more similar to England’s standard of propriety.

In a much more metaphorical sense, India is also present in the conversations about the Shivering Sand of Yorkshire. The Shivering Sand is a place often visited by Collins’ characters, however, it is not a pleasing sight for many who look on it, analogous to India’s uncolonized appearance in the eyes of the empire. The sands conjure feelings of uneasiness and thoughts of suffering and death. When it is looked on by our narrator, Betteredge, he describes it only to the reader and not his company, Rosanna Spearman: “The tide was on the turn, and the horrid sand began to shiver. The broad brown face of it heaved slowly, and then dimpled and quivered all over” (25). His description of the sand elicits the image of a human, but specifically a human of Indian decent through his attentive detail about the color of the “face”. The narrator personifies the sand as committing human movements and reactions; when the tide comes in, oozing over the sand, it reacts in a disturbing and frightening way by heaving and quivering and sinking all over. This suggests the imperialistic approach of privileged unions who overwhelm and conquer countries that have no protection. Because of the British Empire’s vast strength, India could not shield itself from the heavy tide of Britain’s forceful authority and overbearing influence that intended to transform it. Therefore, India succumbed to the tide, still quivering with fear and resentment.

In addition to Gabriel Betteredge’s reception of the Shivering Sand, Rosanna Spearman, the most frequent visitor, views it in another way. She says: “Do you know what it looks like to me?” […] “It looks as if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it – all struggling to get to the surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful deeps!” (25). With this, the reader is struck by a highly disturbing image of entrapment and suffering. Rosanna’s image of people stuck under the sand, which constantly sinks with the wash over of the tide, offers a reminder of the oppression that India suffered.

The Shivering Sand is a mystery in and of itself, much like the mysterious diamond. In Lewis Roberts’ review of The Moonstone, he analyzes the sand and concludes that it, “like the Moonstone, […] exemplifies [the] contradictory notion of reality – the function of this threatening and mysterious location in Collins’ narrative is to conceal and reveal secrets, and to complicate the characters’ knowledge of each other and themselves” (Roberts). The notion that these two symbols of India, especially the Moonstone, rouse questions of one’s own innocence puts a spotlight on the question of whether it is the diamonds evil nature or the Englishmen themselves who generate the plentiful misfortunes that occur over the course of the novel.

By the story’s end, it is discovered that Rachel Verinder’s birthday gift was in fact taken by her own greedy cousin, Godfrey Ablewhite. Arranging the discovery in a way such that the Indian men are the first to be accused and put into jail without any evidence of their guiltiness, and then for Collins’ to conclude with the revelation that it was, in fact, Rachel’s own family member who robbed her, reveals the truth about the false nature of imperialism that was often tried to remain concealed by demonizing anything beyond Britain’s borders.

Wilkie Collins’ narrative evokes a very controversial view of Victorian England and the British Empire by posing a question of morality: Is the Indian diamond truly evil, condemning the innocent English family to a life of trouble, anger, and strife? Or are the calamities a reflection of the evil inflicted upon India by their beloved British Empire? The misuse and disrespect of the Moonstone echoes the oppression occurring ruthlessly in India, while the curse serves to warn of the dangers that abusing power for selfish means entails. When Wilkie Collins says that “certain misfortune [will come] to the persons who should divert [the Moonstone] from its ancient uses,” we can only wonder if he was cautioning against the unacceptable actions of the brutal empire, and the dreadful circumstances that he expected would follow.          

Works Cited

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Ed. John Sutherland. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

 

Streeter, Edwin W., Joseph Hatten, and A. H. Keane. "The Koh-I-Nur." The Great Diamonds of the World: Their History and Romance. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1882. 116-35. Print.

 

McNamara, Robert. "Sepoy Mutiny | Indian Revolt of 1857." About. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

 

"Indian Trade under the British Empire." Indian Trade under the British Empire. India Net Zone, 22 Feb. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

 

"East India Company". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015

 

Allingham, Philip V. "The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876)." The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876). Victorian Web, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

 

Roberts, Lewis. "The "Shivering Sands" of Reality: Narration and Knowledge in Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone." JSTOR. N.p., 1997. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.