The Moonstone and Imperial Claiming

Cassidy Ristine

Word document

A consistent element in Victorian literature is an imperialistic attitude of superiority over non-whites and non-British peoples. Upon a first reading of many novels, essays, and poems from this time period, this heavy bias immediately reveals itself. When approaching The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, however, a reader might encounter initial confusion.
Written in multiple voices and presented as a collection of epistolary correspondence, this novel frustrates ease of interpretation when it comes to its questionable imperialist stance. Some of the narrators, such as Gabriel Betteredge, seem to labor under obvious prejudices, while others, like Franklin Blake, appear to be much more open-minded in their worldview. Upon examining the spatial realities throughout the play, however, it is clear that separations and transformations render the Indian characters and elements forever disengaged from all things British, or altered in their central identity in order to assimilate. Despite the multiplicity of voices, Wilkie Collins’ detective novel subversively supports a view of imperialism in which the foreign or “other” element is only acceptable at a safe distance from Britain or once it has been stamped with the sign of British approval, as seen most obviously in the novel’s treatment of the three Indians, the Moonstone, and Rachel Verinder.
Before leaping straight into this undercover breed of imperialism, it is necessary to examine the background or framework of empire within the world of the novel. Lending a specific tone to the rest of the book, the prologue of The Moonstone reveals several attributes considered inherent in the Indian personality. This portion of the novel is subtitled, “The Storming of Seringapatam (1799),” and it centers upon the subject of a family quarrel. This specific quarrel originated from the theft of a valuable diamond, the Moonstone, in a violent manner. As an unnamed family member party to the incident narrates, during this military action, a certain John Herncastle became enamored with the story of the Moonstone and chose to use whatever means necessary in order to obtain it for himself. Upon discovery, the narrator says,
The man turned at the instant when I came in, and I saw John Herncastle, with a torch in one hand, and a dagger dripping with blood in the other. A stone, set like a pommel, in the end of the dagger’s handle, flashed in the torchlight, as he turned on me, like a gleam of fire. The dying Indian sank to his knees, pointed to the dagger in Herncastle’s hand, and said, in his native language: -- “The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!” He spoke those words, and fell dead on the floor. (Collins 56-57)
This passage opens the story of the novel, explaining much of the following action as the Moonstone makes its way to Britain and wreaks havoc, presumably as a result of the curse placed upon John Herncastle.
In addition to providing necessary information for the continuing narrative, this portion outlines a fundamental principle of relations between the British and the Indian characters. The role of the symbolic British person in this scene is that of violence and theft, while the role of the token Indian character involves submission, vulnerability, and cursing. This framework for relationship continues throughout the novel, undergoing degrees of variability in different contexts. As long as the Indian element submits to the control of the British element—whether by avoidance and silence or by being coopted into the British narrative—trouble can be avoided. The only way for Indian characters to “win” or achieve any measure of victory against the British, though, is through deception, cursing, or violence perpetrated offstage.
Perhaps the clearest example of this manner of relating to the foreign element in The Moonstone arrives with the three Indians. In the most extensive description of these characters, their ancestors’ history is related to the reader by way of the prologue’s narrator. He tells their story, describing them as undercover Brahmins who follow the Moonstone when it is stolen by a series of conquering forces. Rather than lose sight of the sacred stone, they adopt disguises in order to maintain close proximity. “Powerless to recover their lost treasure by open force,” as the narrator states in the prologue, “the three guardian priests followed and watched it in disguise” (55). For these Indians, they can only deceive the reigning power if they are to ultimately achieve their goal.
Later in the story, the grouping of three Indians reemerges, although they are now the descendants of the original Moonstone protectors. When they make their reentrance, these Indians appear as traveling tricksters, searching for an audience in order to practice their trade. As Betteredge describes, “The Indians … had small hand-drums slung in front of them. Behind them stood a little delicate-looking light-haired English boy carrying a bag. I judged the fellows to be strolling conjurers, and the boy with the bag to be carrying the tools of their trade” (Collins 69). Once again, the only way for Indian characters to exert power or to grasp after it in the world of this novel comes through active deception. They present themselves as tricksters and conjurers, and as both Franklin Blake and Gabriel Betteredge later discover—or rather assume—they are at the Verinders’ home in order to steal the Moonstone (82-89, 103-104).
Oddly enough, in the Indians’ initial interaction with Betteredge as well as in all other mention of these characters, they never speak lines for themselves. A British narrator relates every word and every action. Several of their actions are also repeatedly assumed rather than verified by any reliable source. For example, when the Indians are assumed to have killed Godfrey Ablewhite, every aspect describing their crime is deduced or communicated purely through a British speaker. Sergeant Cuff, specifically, lists the facts he has gathered in order to determine that the Indians are guilty of murdering Ablewhite. After determining most of his information on the basis of eyewitnesses and a scrap of gold thread, Cuff admits, “There is here, moral, if not legal, evidence, that the murder was committed by the Indians” (524). At no time are the Indians themselves consulted or called in to trial before being found guilty.
In the end of the novel, this perpetual silence concludes in an ultimate sentence of banishment for the three Indians. As Mr. Murthwaite writes in the final chapter,
They [the Indians] were Brahmins … who had forfeited their caste, in the service of the god. The god had commanded that their purification should be the purification by pilgrimage. On that night, the three men were to part. In three separate directions, they were to set forth as pilgrims to the shrines of India. Never more were they to look on each other’s faces. Never more were they to rest on their wanderings, from the day which witnessed their separation, to the day which witnessed their death. (Collins 541-542)
The emphasis in this passage on being alone in one’s wanderings, as seen in repetition of words related to solitary journeying (“pilgrim,” “pilgrimage”) and separation (“part,” “separate,” “separation”) draws out the finality and terrible consequence of being an othered entity in relation to a British context. Since the Indians failed to conform to the expectations and pattern of the English—despite their victory in obtaining the diamond—they must be banished forever not only from their native cultural context, but also from the comforts of lifelong friendship.
Another “character” in this novel that experiences banishment (albeit temporary) is the Moonstone itself, although this precious gemstone seems to exert its own agency in a manner contrary to that of the Indians. Based on the actual Koh-i-Noor diamond, or “Mountain of Light” (“Precious Stones”), which is now part of the British crown jewels, the Moonstone has one mysterious flaw deep at its center. This flaw ultimately led to the stone being cut into a different shape in order to eliminate this flaw. In “Outlandish English Subjects in The Moonstone,” an essay by Timothy L. Carens, he connects the Moonstone with Rachel Verinder, one of the central English characters in the novel. Carens says, “The Moonstone’s mysterious flaw corresponds to what Betteredge calls the single ‘defect’ in the character of ‘this charming creature’ [meaning Rachel], her ‘independence’ or ‘self-will’” (Carens).
The Moonstone may not have any actual independence or agency to assert, but it is frequently attributed with such a power by characters within the novel. Betteredge, especially, seems to believe that the diamond is wreaking havoc on the Verinder household. On the day after the theft of the diamond, upon noticing the chaos of the servants, family, and guests, Betteredge comments, “The cursed Moonstone had turned us all upside down” (Collins 140). He feels his domestic world is in turmoil, and he immediately blames the foreign element: the newly arrived Moonstone.
Significant connections exist in this novel between Rachel Verinder and the Moonstone, despite their differences in ultimate fate. As Murthwaite says early in the novel, the proper way to deal with the Indians and their insistence on reclaiming the Moonstone is to “‘Send the Diamond to-morrow … to be cut up at Amsterdam. Make half a dozen diamonds of it, instead of one. There is an end of its sacred identity as The Moonstone –and there is an end of the conspiracy’” (Collins 131). Murthwaite proposes to destroy the Moonstone’s identity and to rebrand it as a British commodity, but rather than submitting to an action of imperial claiming, the diamond is stolen back again by the Indians after they have murdered Godfrey Ablewhite (532).
Similar to the Moonstone, Rachel Verinder is considered at least partially “other” when compared with the more clearly English characters in the novel, and her personality supposedly bears the effects of this Indian taint. In a description of Rachel Verinder, Betteredge says,
If you happen to like dark women …, I answer for Miss Rachel as one of the prettiest girls your eyes ever looked on. She was small and slim, but all in fine proportion from top to toe. ... Her hair was the blackest I ever saw. Her eyes matched her hair. … Her mouth and chin were … morsels for the gods; and her complexion … was as warm as the sun itself, with this great advantage over the sun, that it was always in nice order to look at” (Collins 108).
In this description, Betteredge speaks of both the Indian and the British aesthetic elements which coexist in Rachel. For example, in the above segment, Betteredge acknowledges that Rachel is pretty only if someone has tastes leaning toward darker complexions. Yet, he also notes that she is “small and slim” and is “all in fine proportion from top to toe,” which are both more English aesthetic considerations, or at least may be seen in other areas of the world besides India. Betteredge tends toward an objectifying view of Rachel in this speech, which remains consistent with his misogynistic trend throughout his narration. This attitude of objectification, however, might further connect Rachel and the Moonstone. They are both appreciated for their beauty and depreciated because of a “fatal flaw,” as mentioned above. Rachel’s flaw is her refusal to conform to the gender expectations around her. The Moonstone’s flaw is a physical one, deep in its heart.
How does the novel proceed in exerting British imperial control over both Rachel and the Moonstone, then, since both exert a rebellious force against the dominant system? Well, the Moonstone ultimately escapes imperial control through an act of secret violence and theft. Rachel, however, does not escape the attempts to imperially claim her; rather, she narrowly misses perversion by improper marriage and merges with the British culture through a better domestic union, while still retaining her personhood. According to Carens, mentioned above, British men create an idol in Rachel, like the idolatry practiced by Indians in relation to the Moonstone. Carens says, “She embodies the symbolic instability of the diamond, which is … simultaneously sacred talisman and desirable possession. The patriarchal cult in England, like its colonial counterpart, must own the object of its adoration.” Godfrey Ablewhite ascribes to this idolatry, treating “both Rachel and her diamond as loot to plunder from the temple of domesticity” (Carens). Ablewhite symbolizes the power of imperialism to bend the will of a free “other” to one’s own uses.
This threat against Rachel’s freedom, however, does not limit her future happiness. In fact, she eventually pierces through Ablewhite’s phony front, refusing his marriage proposal and later achieving one of her truest desires, that of marrying Franklin Blake, by the end of the novel (535). One of the qualities which contribute to Rachel’s success in the end is the fact that she is already partially British to begin with: her parentage gives her a portion in both England and India. In order to completely claim her, Britain must domesticate her, which it does—in a sense—when she makes up with Blake and becomes part of a matrimonial union. She retains her will and her fire, however, despite the domesticity in which she has immersed herself.
In conclusion, the tendency beneath the surface of Wilkie Collins’ novel toward exclusion or conversion of “others” reveals a reality common in the world today. Outward appearances of acceptance do not necessarily mean that a work is not influenced heavily by imperialism. Although The Moonstone moves toward a world in which Indians are fully embraced as human beings and complete persons by British people, it does not completely allow them to inhabit the spaces in which Britons are accustomed to dominate. Although imperialism has been nearly routed, Collins and his contemporaries had a bit further to go before reaching racial equality in their literary pursuits.












Works Cited
Carens, Timothy L. "Outlandish English Subjects in The Moonstone." Reality’s Dark Light. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2003. 239-265. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 255. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Ed. Steve Farmer. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview, 1999. Print.
"Precious Stones in the Crystal Palace, The Illustrated Exhibitor: Guide to the Great Exhibition, 1851, 606*48*DSC." www.bl.uk. The British Library Board, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.