Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moonstone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Detective Methods and Genre Standards
Intention, Identity, and Personality
Science and Religion
Gender and Victorian Morality
Class, Wealth, and Nobility
British Imperialism
Summary
Analysis
Betteredge recounts Franklin’s decision to leave the estate after receiving his letter from Julia, which was largely the same as the one Betteredge received, but included an addendum concerning Rachel: Julia sees that Rachel’s silence is outrageous, but is more interested in her daughter’s well-being than her secrets. Julia insists that nobody, including Cuff, understands what happened. She is planning to bring Rachel to London to see doctors, and for a change of scenery. While she asks Franklin to meet her and Rachel there, Julia also recognizes that Rachel and Franklin cannot be together now, especially because Franklin—in his well-intentioned attempts to find the Diamond—actually multiplied Rachel’s anxiety.
The reader does, after all, get insight into Julia’s letter to Franklin, which confirms Julia’s paramount concern for her daughter. In contrast to Cuff and Betteredge’s endless, driving curiosity about the case, Julia simply wants what is best for her family, and has no interest in the Diamond. Indeed, throughout the rest of the novel, these two concerns come into and out of alignment, and it is worth asking whether the novel is truly about the search for the Diamond or the quest to repair the Verinder family—most of all Franklin and Rachel—torn apart by the Diamond’s curse.
Themes
Franklin thinks back to when he first arrived at the Verinder estate with the Diamond, and how the jewel has torn the family apart (just as Herncastle would have wanted). As the house staff bids him goodbye, Betteredge asks where he is going; he claims to be “going to the devil!” Without him, Betteredge returns to Robinson Crusoe, and the other servants return to talking about Rosanna (whom they assume stole the Moonstone and committed suicide out of guilt). Penelope still believes Rosanna was completely innocent.
Despite their rough start, both in Franklin’s childhood and upon his return to England, Betteredge and Franklin are clearly the best of friends after enduring the crucible of Cuff’s investigation together. With his departure, the normal order of things takes back over the house—represented most of all by the return of Robinson Crusoe (although a 21st century reader might wonder why a country house needs scores of servants to continue running normally when its owners are not even living in it).
Themes
The day after Franklin’s departure, a letter arrives for the servants, directing them to bring some clothing to Frizinghall so that Rachel and Julia can bring it with them to London. Betteredge writes to ask Franklin’s whereabouts, and the rest of that night is uneventful—the first such day in some time. But the next day is shocking: as Cuff predicted, Betteredge received news from the Yollands, when their invalid daughter, Limping Lucy, arrives at the house to ask about the man she called “Murderer Franklin Blake.” Lucy laments Rosanna's “miserable life” and describes her and Rosanna’s plan to move to London together and make a living independently, which was ruined when Franklin Blake came and “bewitched her.” She demands to confront Franklin and suggests that “the day is not far off when the poor will rise against the rich.”
The end of the investigation also marks a change in scenery for the next section of the novel, as the mystery of the Diamond escapes Betteredge’s domain (the Verinders’ property) and moves on to London. Cuff’s predictions prove accurate, after all, which in turn calls into question whether he might have been right to accuse Rachel of some involvement in the theft. While in some ways similar to Rosanna (visibly deformed and from the lower classes Betteredge disdains), Limping Lucy actually speaks her mind, perhaps since she is not morally indebted to the Verinders. Her threat of a revolution points to the deep class tensions in Victorian Britain and certainly looks vile to the traditionalist Betteredge, although it does also recall Rosanna’s more richly-painted struggle to overcome the social and emotional constraints put on her by Britain’s idea of what constituted a good working-class life. And by accusing Franklin Blake, one of the book’s most sympathetic characters, of wrongdoing (he not only kickstarted the investigation out of concern for Rachel but also suffered immensely when that investigation tore him from her), Lucy again suggests to the reader that appearances may deceive, and that the truth of the Moonstone’s disappearance may turn out to be completely unexpected.
Themes
In fact, Limping Lucy reveals she has a letter for him from Rosanna. Betteredge feels his “detective-fever” returning, and he admits that Franklin Blake has left for London, but offers to send him the letter the following day when he hears back regarding his own letter. But Lucy insists she must “give it from my hands into his hands.” She agrees to let Betteredge write Blake about the letter in her possession, and then abruptly turns back to return home. Betteredge follows her but cannot get her to talk. He visits the family, but Mrs. Yolland only cries and nobody knows anything more about Rosanna’s death.
Lucy’s refusal to let Betteredge deliver the letter and Betteredge’s inability to get through to the Yollands without Cuff’s mediation again suggests that the story is beginning to fall out of his hands, and that it is time for a new narrator. It also means that the mystery of the Moonstone and Rosanna’s connection to it will inevitably resurface when, or if, Franklin returns to Yorkshire.
Themes
Get the entire The Moonstone LitChart as a printable PDF.
The next day, Betteredge receives two letters: one from Penelope confirming that Rachel and Julia reached London, and another from one of Franklin’s father’s servants, explaining that Franklin went directly abroad, “wherever the railway chooses to take [him].” (His father was too busy to talk with him about Rachel after his return.) Nobody, not even Franklin himself, knows from where they will hear news of him next. Between Lucy’s visit and Franklin’s departure, Betteredge realizes that Rosanna’s death truly might have had something to do with Franklin. Nobody knows what is in Limping Lucy’s letter—including Lucy herself—and nobody ever finds Rosanna’s body.
As Betteredge continues to mull things over, he begins to form new opinions on the unresolved case. Franklin’s return to romantically wandering around Europe suggests that it may be some time before Limping Lucy’s letter ever gets delivered, and adds to the lingering mystery and sense of irresolution that indicates the Moonstone’s tale is far from over.
Themes
Two days later, Betteredge receives another letter from Penelope, who reports that a doctor has prescribed Rachel “a whole round of gaieties” from social events to “flower-shows,” to lift her spirits. She is also hanging out with Godfrey. And surprisingly, Miss Clack has not yet shown up on Julia’s doorstep—which is important only because Betteredge has learned that her narrative will be the next document the reader encounters. He implores the reader to “do me the favour of not believing a word she says” about him.
Just as Betteredge always sent for the doctor to resolve Rosanna’s distress, Rachel’s misery becomes translated into a medical disorder, which is to be (perhaps absurdly) treated by distracting and lighthearted social events. This reflects both the state of Victorian medicine, which was far from the scientific profession it is today, and the condescending eye with which women’s problems were viewed. Betteredge’s warning about Miss Clack points to the unreliability of all the book’s narrators and the reader’s task: to form their own interpretation of sometimes competing information.
Themes
The only event of note that Friday was that a dog fell sick. On Saturday, Betteredge received a newspaper addressed to him in Sergeant Cuff’s handwriting, with a curious police report circled: the gem dealer Septimus Luker is being harassed by a persistent group of “three strolling Indians,” whom he thinks might have some relation to an Indian employee who he suspected was stealing from him. He has no legal claim or evidence, but the document confirms that he can bring the Indians to court if they continue to bother him. Betteredge finds this letter perhaps the most remarkable part of the whole story of the Moonstone’s disappearance: all three of Sergeant Cuff’s predictions came true “in less than a week.”
Just like his prediction about the Yollands, Cuff’s other two predictions come true and prove the case remains very much alive. Specifically, he seems to have found the Moonstone in (the ominously-named) Septimus Luker’s possession, and has also confirmed that the Indians have not relented in their own investigation into the stone. While it remains inexplicable to the reader how Sergeant Cuff might have made all these accurate, seemingly disjointed predictions out of the blue, this sustains his contradictory aura as a character somehow so hyperrational as to exceed the apparent capacities of reason.
Themes
Betteredge tells the reader he cannot hold it against them if they choose to believe Sergeant Cuff’s suspicion that Rachel has sold the gem to Luker, rather than his own faith in the family. And he also reveals that he cannot reveal the full details of what has happened since the Diamond’s disappearance, since he has been ordered to “keep strictly within the limits of my own experience” and reveal neither what others told him nor what he has learned since the events in question. In accord with legal procedure, “the plan is,” he writes, “not to present reports, but to produce witnesses.” The reader must now follow the Diamond to London, and Betteredge hopes they will forgive his errors and take solace in his writing just as he took solace in Robinson Crusoe.
As when he began, at the end of his narrative Betteredge deliberately weakens his authorial voice, inviting the reader to doubt him and form their own opinions, as well as reminding them that he has been prevented from including in his tale his own analysis and any knowledge he gained after the fact (a directive his successor Miss Clack completely and colorfully ignores). The structure of “witnesses,” with the reader interpreting the truth and falsehoods told by each, points to the system of legal evidence and investigation that forms the backbone of the book’s plot and theory of evidence.
Themes
