Part 24 - Alayna Freeborn
Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone critically discusses the intricate social structures of the Victorian era through its unique epistolary nature and compelling mystery. By comparing the freethinking, upper-class Rachel Verinder with the hopeful, lower-class Rosanna Spearman, Collins questions the complex ways in which the frameworks of his society work to elevate or reduce certain individuals based on conformity, social status, and disability. By analyzing the texts surrounding the novel in its unique American and British periodicals, the various perspectives and portrayals of the two women can be properly understood by modern readers. In the U.K., the novel was published in All The Year Round, mainly surrounded by essays and stories, and few advertisements, while it was published in the U.S. in Harper’s Weekly as “richly illustrated,” (Harper’s Weekly 373) surrounded by pages of advertisements that outnumbered the actual articles or literature in the magazine. Using these contexts, I will use the 24th section of the novel to argue that the various views of scholars including Martha Stoddard Holmes, Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge, and Mark Mossman can be combined into one distinct understanding. In The Moonstone, Collins both diminishes Rosanna as a lower class disabled woman in her desire for Franklin, while raising her up as a character to be loved and related to by audiences through his comparison of Rosanna and Rachel throughout the novel. By examining the intertextuality of the novel and its encompassing texts, readers will have a new perspective on the complicated relationship between Rosanna and Rachel, including the power each woman holds over each other.
Collins positions Rachel and Rosanna, two women of opposite class statuses, as direct foils through their love for Franklin. The maxims for young women found in Harper’s Weekly give readers of The Moonstone an opportunity to reflect on this class difference, illustrating distinct rules that existed for respectable women and the ways in which Rachel and Rosanna may or may not reflect the concept of a respectable young lady. As part of the upper class, Rachel is required to follow these rules, while Rosanna is not. A direct comparison seen between this entry and the corresponding section of the novel is the maxim “an old maid is an odd boot—no use without a fellow” (Harper’s Weekly 379), which acts as a clear reminder of this difference. Rosanna is already an ‘odd boot:’ a “plain girl” with a “crooked shoulder” (Collins 317) who would never be marriage material. While Rachel is expected to be married, Rosanna is not. Yet Rosanna still sees a chance for her future with Franklin after Rachel leaves, seeing a “little glimpse of hope” (Collins 318) despite their differences. But for Rachel, “eyes are the telegraph of the heart” (Harper’s Weekly 379), while Rosanna is instead “replaced, supplemented in the narrative by a letter” (Mossman 489). Mossman argues that she is literally invisible, “disappearing in person” (489) from the novel as a result of her status as a “woman with a ‘deformity’” (489). However, I would argue that she is not only disappearing as a result of her low status, but as a result of her lack of conformity to ‘ladylike’ qualities. Franklin never considers Rosanna to be an option, showing her “no special interest” (Collins 321) in the belief that she is nothing more than a criminal. To be reminded that marriage is meant for respectable higher class “ladies” (Harper’s Weekly 379) is to be reminded of just how unrealistic Rosanna’s expectations are.
The maxims also advise that “Practice (on the piano) makes perfect” (Harper’s Weekly 379), a framework that can be seen through Rachel’s association with the piano. As Franklin attempts to build the bravado to enter Rachel’s room, he listens through the door as she plays a few “plaintive chords” on the piano (Collins 330). According to Franklin, “she had often idled over the instrument in this way” (330) in the past, an indication of her upper class upbringing and status. In Harper’s Weekly, chapters five and six of The Moonstone open with an illustration of Rachel sitting at the piano, however the actual scene in which it refers to does not take place until the end of the section, on a completely different page of the magazine. Throughout Franklin's narrative, he had been working up to reconnecting with Rachel, something that readers would have been looking forward to for weeks. However, despite teasing the reconnection of Franklin and Rachel, they never actually reunite during this section of the novel. Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge claim that the illustrations in Harper’s Weekly became an important part of the Americanized experience, “heightening the text’s sensationalism” (Leighton 207), and this illustration is an excellent example of that. The illustration stretches the truth in order to bring audiences in, enticing them with the thing they have been waiting for only to reveal that they still will have to wait until the next week in order to find out what happens between Franklin and Rachel. Furthermore, this illustration is placed just before the ending of Rosanna’s letter, further excluding her from the “‘normative sexual economy’” (Mossman 491) by continuing to render her invisible in her own story and replacing her with Rachel. Ultimately, the illustration works to both exaggerate the sensationalist qualities of Collins’ novel as well as highlight the lack of presence Rosanna has in Franklin’s eyes.
In The Moonstone, diamonds are presented as valuable and rare objects that are sought over even by those from higher class positions, an idea that Harper's Weekly opposes in its advertisements. Starr and Marcus advertise an “extensive selection” (Harper’s Weekly 384) of diamonds that can be accessed simply by walking into their store. This could be a compelling advertisement for readers of The Moonstone to see, especially after a section of the novel that directly discusses the possible motivations for stealing it. In her letter to Franklin, Rosanna asserts that it was “plain enough to [her] that [Franklin] had taken the Diamond to sell it…to get the money of which [he] stood in need” (Collins 316). Rosanna is not the only one who assumes this: Even Sergeant Cuff believes that the diamond was stolen for the money. However, this advertisement challenges this assumption, instead positing diamonds as something to be placed in “artistic mountings” (Harper’s Weekly 384) and kept as ornaments or decorations, placing American audiences at a point of superiority to the characters in the novel that British audiences do not have. Moreover, when Franklin discovers that Rachel believes he stole the diamond, the first assumption made is that Rosanna must have shown her the nightgown, in what Bruff states is an “opportunity of setting [Franklin] and Rachel at variance for the rest of [their] lives” (Collins 326). This works to further divide Rachel and Rosanna and place them as supposed enemies. Rachel must have a pure reason to believe that Franklin would do such a thing, whereas Rosanna’s past as a thief and presence as a servant leaves her to be open to such scrutiny and slander. Alternatively, Rachel and Rosanna are “closely connected… by their love for Franklin Blake” as well as by their “belief in Franklin’s guilt” (Holmes 233). While they are not equal in terms of their courtship of Franklin, they are in terms of the bigger investigation. Franklin continues to see Rosanna in a negative light, simultaneously reducing her as an outcast, while elevating Rachel as an innocent bystander. Yet the novel posits the women as equals as a result of their shared protection of Franklin. By reducing the value of the diamond, the advertisement allows audiences to question the heightened dramatics of the novel and focus on the truth rather than the assumptions and opinions of its narrators.
In All The Year Round, Collins’ novel is almost directly followed by the short story “Goodman Misery.” In the story, Death comes to take Goodman Misery, but finds him to be unafraid, welcoming him “without flinching a muscle” (All The Year Round 12). Misery plans to trick Death, trapping him in his pear-tree, and forcing him to promise that he will be the last man to die. In the end, death promises, and “misery lives till the world shall be no more” (13). This moral plays a key role in Rosanna’s death, and the misery she suffers throughout the novel and her life. She lives in “misery and mortification” (Collins 317) over her unrequited desire for Franklin, saying goodbye to the world that “has grudged [her of] the happiness that it gives to others” (320). For British audiences, misery is positioned as a universal struggle, leaving Rosanna’s character to be related to more than by those of American audiences, who, through the comparisons between upper and lower class women seen in Harper’s Weekly, may look at her as something to be pitied for her love for Franklin. Rosanna is “characterized only by her tormented passion for Franklin Blake” (Holmes 233), fated to die in misery in contrast to Rachel's fate of love and happiness. Yet Holmes argues that as a result of her letters, her “passion” is “preserved… in the ‘documents’ that comprise The Moonstone” (233) and this connection to the readers leaves her to be resonated with more strongly than Rachel. “Goodman Misery” exaggerates this relation, giving British readers a reason to feel less alone in their misery. Rosanna’s misery elevates her as a character, for the first time putting her above Rachel. While the novel does not allow Rosanna the admiration of the man she desires, it does allow her the admiration of its readers.
Ultimately, while the dynamic between Rosanna and Rachel can be seen through different lenses in the U.K. and U.S., I argue that the best understanding comes from a combination of the two. As seen in Harper’s Weekly, Rachel is elevated by her ladylike qualities as well as the sensationalist qualities of the text and its illustrations. Rosanna’s invisibility can be seen as a result of this elevation, fading into the background as a result of her lack of refinement. However, while in terms of Franklin’s love, Rosanna is only meant to be pitied, she is given narrative power by the novel itself that Rachel is not. Rosanna is given the chance to tell her story, allowing readers to build a stronger connection with her, even after her death. All The Year Round gives a more realistic view of this, not completely abandoning the sensationalism, but grounding it in reality in order to allow audiences to see through the unreliability of the novel’s narrator more clearly. Section 24 is placed at a turning point in the novel, providing a transition between the end of Rosanna’s story and the beginning of Rachel’s. As a result, it acts as a focal point for many of the issues surrounding gender, disability, and social status, as well as a jumping off point for the end of the novel, setting off the final search for the answer everyone’s looking for: What happened to the diamond?
Works Cited
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Oxford University Press, 2019.
"Goodman Misery." All the Year Round, 6 June, 1868. p 11. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/docview/7892565/AB18F3EFA32447F6PQ/9?accountid=9838&sourcetype=Historical%20Periodicals&imgSeq=1.
Holmes, Martha Stoddard. “Bolder with Her Lover in the Dark: Collins and Disabled Women’s Sexuality.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, vol. 413, 2022, pp. 227–45.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa Surridge. “The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper’s Weekly.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 207–43, https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.0.0083.
"Maxims for Young Ladies." Harper's Weekly, 13 June, 1868: p 379. Gale Primary Sources, https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=12&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=598&userGroupName=ucalgary&inPS=true&mCode=96EY&prodId=AAHP&issueDate=118680613.
Mossman, Mark. “Representations of the Abnormal Body in the Moonstone.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 37, no. 2, 2009, pp. 483–500, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150309090305.
"Rachel at the Piano." Harper's Weekly, 13 June, 1868: p 373. Gale Primary Sources, https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=12&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=598&userGroupName=ucalgary&inPS=true&mCode=96EY&prodId=AAHP&issueDate=118680613.
"The Finest Diamonds." Harper's Weekly, 13 June, 1868: p 384. Gale Primary Sources, https://go-gale-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=12&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=598&userGroupName=ucalgary&inPS=true&mCode=96EY&prodId=AAHP&issueDate=118680613.