Imperial Propaganda the Moonstone

Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone has been acknowledged as containing imperial propaganda through out, yet if one looks even closer, they will no doubt find an alternate reading which conveys a discrete dispute to the imperial frame of mind. The opening and closing of the novel, the prolog and the epilog, both take place in the British colony of India with the majority of the narrative occurring in London, England. In the beginning, the precious Jewel is stolen form a temple in India by middle class English men. Wilkie Collins links the theft of the jewel with violence and in turn associates these two degrading actions with that of colonial administration.

Towards the beginning of the novel, Gabriel Betteredge states that the inviolability of the English house has been “invaded by a devilish Indian diamond.’ (p67) Yet the prolog clearly points out that it was the invasion of the Indian homeland by the British that resulted in the misplacing of the scared Jewel. The three Indians are portrayed as a huge stereotype with attributes given to them as having ‘the patience of cats...the ferocity of tigers’ (p108), both cats and tigers being signs of the Indian culture. The value placed on the diamond in both cultures has very contrasting stand points. In the English culture the worth is estimated in terms of its monetary value where as in the Hindu culture the stone is measured only in its spiritual value. The colonial leaders rationalized there actions by reasoning that they were enlightening a culture they saw as inferior. The colonialists were taking control of the Indian markets and spreading Christianity through out the country. Colin’s uses the Jewel to convey his thoughts of imperial British rule. The jewel comes to England and causes distress among all who come into contact with it, yet in India the Jewel is held in sacred and seems to bring peace and calm to everyone involved with it there. If English society can not deal with this jewel without backstabbing, lies and deceit ensuing, what right do they have in viewing themselves as superior to the India society?

Even the English social order cannot solve the case of the moonstone. Ezra Jennings is the man responsible for cracking the case. Jennings is an outcast in the English society and wasn’t even raised in England; he was raised in an unnamed colonial outpost. The fact that a man raised in an English colony, such as India was at the time, constructs the final plan for discovering the truth points to the deeper imperial meaning through out the novel. Colin’s seems to feel that maybe Britain isn’t capable of controlling another nation because it can’t deal with its own problems. This is demonstrated overall with the problem the moonstone creates and not even sergeant Cuff can solve the riddle.

Opium, the drug that causes the problem in the first place, is that of an orient origin. Collins himself was in a state of heavy opium usage himself during the period when he wrote the Moonstone, so it’s no shock that the drug gets a fair deal of attention in the story. While The Moonstone is primarily a tale of family secrets, religious corruption, and an English society with a central attribute of disregard, 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.