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All quotations taken from Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986.
Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone has been read as an archetypal piece of imperial propaganda, and yet it seems to lend itself to an alternate reading in which it represents a distinct challenge to the colonial mindset. The majority of the tale is set in England but the Indian location of the prologue and epilogue explicitly root The Moonstone within the context of the colonial experience in India. Far from being incidental embellishments, these two sections provide the opening and the closure of the story. Significantly, the thefts of the eponymous jewel is carried out by a series of upper-class Englishmen, starting with John Herncastle. It is hugely relevant that he steals the moonstone during the siege of Seringapatam in 1799, an event which consolidated the dominance of the East India Company in colonial India. The Moonstone first appeared in serial form on January 4th 1868 by which time myths and facts about the British termed ‘mutiny’ of 1857 were firmly entrenched in the national consciousness. Amidst the widespread repercussions of the events of the mutiny was a loss of former power on the part of the same company. Through his evocation of these memories Wilkie Collins seems to link looting and violence with colonial maladministration.
It would be impossible to argue that the three Indian Brahmin are anything other than stereotypical having ‘the patience of cats...the ferocity of tigers’ (p108), yet, assumptions of Oriental deviousness are ultimately not confirmed by the text. Instead, Collins utilises Orientalist discourse to create an atmosphere of suspense and mysticism which undermines English rather than Indian society. Using terminology such as ‘supernatural...mesmeric...romantic...clairvoyance’(p332) sets the Indians up as the villains of the piece but proceeds to subvert popular expectations by focusing his critique on the underlying disorder and hypocrisies of English society. Gabriel Betteredge sees the sanctity of the English home as having been ‘invaded by a devilish Indian diamond’ (p67) yet Collins makes it clear that this ‘invasion’ is the direct result of colonial violation of India and its indigenous religions. The perseverance, dedication, and unity of the Brahmins is in stark contrast to the Victorian religious hypocrisy of Miss Clack and Godfrey Ablewhite with his ‘evangelical voice and manner’(p280). During the nineteenth century British activity in India tended to be codified and justified as being part of a civilising mission bringing moral and Enlightenment values to the masses. The Moonstone suggests that the Hindu culture may well be less morally suspect than anything the colonisers choose to impose. In England the moonstone is valued in terms of mercantile display while in India its worth lies solely in its spiritual associations.
It takes no great leap of the imagination for the post-Freudian reader to recognise that a symbolic interpretation is possible in the theft of the precious jewel from Rachel Verrinder’s unlocked cabinet. The moonstone is characterised as female ‘growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon’(p33)and, in the possession of the virginal Rachel this femininity has a particular resonance. Rachel’s stained gown and altered personality suggest the potential for loss of virginity and marriage to subsume her individuality and identity. Tamar Heller points out that the juxtaposition of plots of courtship and colonialism ‘suggests an analogy between imperial and sexual domination’ (Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins And the Female Gothic. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972, p.145). The male theft of the moonstone and the threat implied by Rachel’s approaching loss of virginity are equated with the colonial rape of a feminized India --the jewel in the imperial crown.
None of the English characters manage to explain the theft of the moonstone and the eventual reconstruction of events is achieved by Ezra Jennings, an outcast in English society. Raised in an unnamed colonial outpost, Jennings is associated with the East in a variety of ways. He is of mixed race, prone to ‘feminine’ fits of crying, and achieves his insight through a judicious administration of opium, the quintessential drug of the orient. However, Collins has no intention of maligning the use of the opiate as it has motivated Franklin’s well-meaning theft as well as facilitating a reconstruction of the incident. Considering that Collins himself found immense relief from pain through his own heavy use of opium it is hardly surprising that it assumes heroic status in The Moonstone itself.
While The Moonstone is primarily a tale of family secrets, religious corruption, and an English society with a central core of rottenness, the use of colonial markers and the subversion of stereotypes reveal that for Wilkie Collins there was an inherent link between a malfunctioning society and colonial exploitation.
This project was completed under the direction of Dr. Leon Litvack as a requirement for the MA degree in Modern Literary Studies in the School of English at the Queen's University of Belfast. The site is evolving and will include contributions from future generations of MA students on other writers and themes.
This page was written by Tricia Doyle.
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The Imperial Archive Project is
supervised by Leon Litvack. E-mail
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