English Literature

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is regarded historically as one of the first true detective novels. It is the beginning of a genre of fiction wherein we are introduced to the gentleman detective, the bumbling local police, suspicious characters later proven innocent and the surprise exposure of the villain. In nineteenth century England social standing was associated with intelligence and good favor. Members of the working classes such as butlers, maids and servants provided minor roles in these types of stories. They may occupy a pivotal role in helping to solve the case, but are by no means able to solve it by themselves. The Gentry, on the other hand, are given far more leeway in this. They are not only capable of solving crimes, they are considered to be head and shoulders above the local constabulary. It is this peerless position that also allows such characters to be the villains themselves as their exalted station does not readily lend the reader to suspect their guilt. Characters of other nationalities occupy an even lower spectrum. Non-English speaking, non-white characters are portrayed as little more than thugs. Yet it is proven that the Moonstone holds a great deal of cultural importance for them.

In Wilkie Collins and the Detective Story by Robert P. Ashley The Moonstone is recognized as the first full-length detective novel in the English language (Ashley 47-60). The detective is Franklin Blake, a cousin of Rachel Verinder, a young Englishwoman who inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. Rachel wears the diamond (called the Moonstone) at a large party celebrating her eighteenth birthday. Later that night the Moonstone is stolen from her bedroom and the mystery to recover the diamond begins. Blake mounts a hunt for the jewel, which infuriates Rachel. Her maidservant, Rosanna Spearman, also begins to act suspiciously. These are the first red herrings offered in the novel. In a surprise twist the reader is led to learn, at the same time as Franklin Blake, the narrator, that it is he who lifted the stone from Rachels room (Collins 1-430). But Blake is not a guilty party rather the rest of the story unfolds with how the crime was committed.   Blake was secretly given laudanum by Dr. Candy. In a narcotic trance he got up during the night and took the diamond from Rachels room. Outside her room he meets Godfrey Ablewhite and in his trance, gives him the diamond to place in an English bank vault. Instead Ablewhite sees a chance to reclaim his diminished fortune and absconds with the diamond instead. As it turns out Rachels maidservant, Rosanna Spearman believes Blake is guilty, but she is in love with him, so she conceals evidence, throwing suspicion on herself. In despair because Blake does not return her affection she commits suicide. Rachels attitude is explained when she tells Blake she saw him take the gem, but she refuses to out him to protect his reputation, although she thinks he is a thief and a hypocrite (Collins 1-430).  These are all typical nineteenth century literary devices. The maidservant loves Blake, but she is of a lower status, so they can never be together. She therefore chooses suicide as a way out of her dilemma. Rachel knows who the thief is, but in the interest of protecting her man, says nothing. It is Blake, the gentlemanly hero who must resolve his own dilemma.  

Melissa Frees Dirty Linen Legacies of Empire in Wilkie Collinss The Moonstone paints a starker picture between the characters and British Imperialism. The main villain, Godfrey Ablewhite, is a committeeman and Exeter Hall frequenter devoted to womens charities (Free 340-371). Underneath a smooth veneer he is a philanderer, burglar and hypocrite. He is the true heir to John Herncastle, the original thief of the gem. While Blake is in an unconscious trance, Ablewhite picks up the diamond when it falls from Blakes hand. The circumstances of the theft leave Ablewhite disavowing responsibility for the crime. In a symbolic gesture, the theft echoes the imperial plunder of the nation of India. When the three Indian Brahmins find Ablewhite, the white man is smothered beneath a white pillow. The Brahmins do not want the gem for materialistic gain, but because of its sacredness to their culture. The gem is a gift that embodies their God Vishnu and the moon itself. Ablewhite pillages the funds of his ward just as the British Empire plundered the property over those whom they ruled. The claim being to bequeath a legacy or superior morality. He is found dressed as a merchant seaman, the embodiment of imperial righteousness. The location of his death and the reclaiming of the diamond by the Brahmins are near where the East India Company stood in 1849.  This serves as an ironic comment on the values of the company. His death itself, by the three Brahmins, exposes his individual criminality and his large scale hypocrisy associated with his empty moralizing (Free 340-371). Another character that lays exposed is Rachels mother, Lady Verinder. When Sergeant Cuff attempts to conduct his own investigation, she prevents him from proceeding any further. Family problems stay within the family and are resolved within the family itself. He is another working class character, but he is not portrayed tragically as the maidservant Rosanna Spearman. Rather his is a more comic portrayed as the detective has a penchant for roses. But his character is forced to step out of the scene so that the upper class Blake can step in to solve the crime.

Mark Mossman writes in his article, Representations of the Abnormal Body in the Moonstone how disfigurement of one of its characters leads to differences in perception. Rosanna Spearman, for example, is portrayed as having a deformed shoulder. When Franklin Blake sees her it is treated as a moment of compulsory subordination. A moment where disability is translated irretrievably into a negative abnormalcy (Mossman 37, 483500).  Anything considered abnormal was emblematic of disorder and was confined, administered and controlled. Gabriel Betteredges opening narrative shows this Victorian way of thinking very clearly. Betteredge, attempting to explain her lack of popularity with the other servants, first describes the hapless Rosanna Spearman in the following way I hardly know what the girl did to offend them. There was certainly no beauty about her to make the others envious she was the plainest woman in the house, with the additional misfortune of having one shoulder bigger than the other (Collins 35). It is the additional misfortune that is the real determining factor in Rosannas identity Betteredge continues with these physical designations as his narrative unfolds. He defines Rosanna as a deformed and an ugly body, implying that she is most often to be pitied. In the same passage he describes first meeting Rosanna at the Shivering Sand there she was, in her little straw bonnet, and her plain grey cloak that she always wore to hide her deformed shoulder as much as might be  there she was, all alone, looking out on the quicksand and the sea (Collins 36). The message is clear and the communication to the reader is plain Betteredge is telling the reader that Rosanna must be pitied because she is physically different and pathetically so  she is female, poor, alone, and most of all, deformed (Mossman 37, 483500).

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is regarded historically as one of the first true detective novels. It is the beginning of a genre of fiction known as mystery and suspense. Many of the well known literary devices are here. The gentleman detective such as Franklin Blake. A member of the gentlemanly class so far removed from any wrongdoing that when the diamond thief is revealed it is as much to Blakes surprise as it is the readers since it was done by him under a drug-induced stupor. The bumbling local police as represented by Sergeant Cuff possess the means but not the brains to solve the crime. That is left to those such as Blake who are perceived to be their betters. In opposition to Blake is Godfrey Ablewhite. The true perpetrator of the crime. Yet he initially goes undetected as he also is a member of Blakes class. It is only later through Blakes detective work and the involvement of the three Brahmins that his guilt lays exposed. Characters such as Rosanna Spearman and the Brahmins are given superficial treatment in the book. Spearman because she is deformed, the Brahmins because they are non-whites. They occupy places of suspicion until Blakes detective work exonerates them. These characters distinctly portray the racial and cultural differences that occupied Imperial Britain at the time. England was subduing India, yet Imperialism brought with it a great deal of emotional baggage. Collins novel reflects this along with having the honor of being the first detective story.

Puddnhead Wilson by Mark Twain
Mark Twains Puddnhead Wilson also speaks of social criticism. This time it is the Antebellum South and the condition of slavery. Twains characters accept their roles in life, but it is the reader who knows that not all is as it seems. In this particular story a crime is not committed until later in the novel. From the beginning the reader is aware of who committed the act and the story foreshadows how the crime will be solved. It is the denouement that is the novelty here as fingerprinting had not come into official use in criminal investigation. In fact it is regarded with contempt as the title of the novel implies. The main character, a lawyer named David Wilson, collects them as a hobby. He is regarded as a simpleton by the locals who brand him a puddnhead - a nitwit. But it is precisely this occupation that helps Wilson to unmask the killer. The social criticism is clearly drawn here as none of the characters are allowed to escape the burdens society has placed on them from birth. The dnouement of the story is also a tragedy as much as the murder itself and nobody is really safe from it.  

Mark Twain specialized in the illuminating incident (Feinstein 160-163). His story Puddnhead Wilson, takes place in the fictional Missouri frontier town of Dawsons Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the nineteenth century. A young lawyer named David Wilson moves into the town to start a law practice. A chance remark causes the locals to brand him a puddnhead  a nitwit. His hobby of collecting fingerprints does not raise their estimation of him. He has to settle for being a bookkeeper versus a lawyer as the townspeople do not frequent his law practice (Twain 1-90). He fades into the background, however, and the focus shifts to Roxy, a slave who is only one-sixteenth black. She has a son named Valet de Chambre (referred to as Chambers in the story) who is only 132 black. Roxys chief duty is the care of her inattentive masters infant son Tom Driscoll. When slaves are caught stealing and sold downriver, Roxy must make a decision for herself and her young son. Either she will commit suicide and take her son with her or she will find a way to give him a better life. She decides to switch Driscoll and Chambers so her son can have a privileged life (Twain 1-90). The story moves ahead two decades where we meet Driscoll (aka Chambers) who has grown into a spoiled, selfish, and dissolute aristocratic young man. The father is now dead and Roxy has her freedom. When she is facing being penniless she reveals to Tom Driscoll that she is his mother and blackmails him into supporting her. In debt and needing money badly, Tom kills his uncle, a judge, with a knife belonging to a pair of Italian twins in town. They are initially blamed for the murder, but it is David Wilson who, through the use of his fingerprint collection and a few lucky accidents, reveals Tom as the culprit. The fingerprints also reveal Toms true identity as Valet de Chambre, a slave and the real Tom Driscoll is also identified. The false Tom is jailed and then sold downriver to pay the debts of the real Toms late father. The real Tom is given back his place as a white man and heir, but his speech and mannerisms mark him as a black man, so he fits in nowhere. Puddnhead Wilson is elected Mayor and finally recognized as a successful lawyer, but he has no one to celebrate his success with (Twain 1-90). The story describes the racism of the antebellum south, even as to seemingly white people with minute traces of Negro ancestry, and the acceptance of that state of affairs by all involved, including the black population.

Stephen Railtons The Tragedy of Mark Twain, by Puddnhead Wilson. brings out the racial dynamic of the slave-holding South. In the beginning of the story David Wilson admires Roxys son and her masters son. Roxy is flattered that Wilson notices her child is handsome also even though he is black. Her upbringing has taught her to think of herself and her son as inferior. Later, in the courtroom, Wilson seems to have switched sides entirely as he points out the false Tom as negro and slave and the real Tom as white and free. It is this declaration which, ironically, raises his status in the townspeoples eyes. He is now one of them. By succumbing to the popular prejudices he has won the battle against the prejudice he has faced (Railton 518-544).

John Whitleys Puddnhead Wilson Mark Twain and the Limits of Detection, illustrates the contrasts in Mark Twains story. There is a prevalent concept of honour versus the crime of slaveholding. Twain has painted a picture not of a society that can be cured, but incapable of cure because there is no real identity except through fingerprints (Whitley 55-70). Identity in the story is confused by shifting appearances. Wilson is deceived as much as anyone. The problems of identity occur because no one is seen properly. They are rendered as types. Blacks are treated as much less than human. Mr. Driscoll is described as a fairly humane man towards slaves and other animals (Twain 1-90). But the failure to tell the two babies apart shows the inextricable links between the two races and how easily the color line can be crossed. The evil in this story is not an isolated deviance, but darkness deeply embedded within the society (Whitley 55-70).  Roxy is happy and proud when her nigger son is lording it among the whites and securely avenging their crimes against her race (Twain 22). The novel speaks with bitterness of the closed society whose codes and rituals cover stupidity and inhumanity. At the end of the novel there is no restored sense of grace because no one had that state of grace to begin with.  The end of a classic detective story restores harmony to the closed society. At the end of Puddnhead Wilson the Italian twins, after their innocence is proven, retire immediately to Europe for peace and quiet that is not obtainable in the New World. In fact settlement of the New World has proven to be profoundly unsettling (Whitley 55-70).  Chambers is restored to his proper, white status and is totally lost.  He is terrified of the parlor and can only feel at home in the kitchen. Roxys spirit is irrevocable broken. The reader does not get harmony but scattered debris. Puddnhead is now declared a made man for good. Previously, however, his calendar entry comments on how it was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to have missed it. It seems Columbuss and Wilsons dream has truly turned sour (Whitley 55-70).

Mark Twains Puddnhead Wilson is appropriately called a tragedy. The social criticism is of slavery. The denouement of the novel is original as a southern white aristocrat is exposed as a negro slave and a negro slave is revealed to be a white southern aristocrat. Even though the false Tom was a cruel and insensitive human being, the reader cannot help but observe with horror his descent into becoming a slave and being sold downriver exactly as his mother feared. Meanwhile the real Tom cannot adjust to his new position in life. Dave Puddnhead Wilson started as someone who would not bend to the small towns prejudices, but he gives in by exposing the two men in court. He becomes the local hero for capitulating to their beliefs. He wins his battle with prejudice by trading in his ideals. He too, is irrevocably lost. This is the detective story in reverse harmony is not restored, instead social injustice stands revealed.