The Moonstone

The Moonstone

by

Wilkie Collins

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Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme Icon
Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Icon
Science and Religion Theme Icon
Gender and Victorian Morality Theme Icon
Class, Wealth, and Nobility Theme Icon
British Imperialism Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moonstone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intention, Identity, and Personality Theme Icon

The theft of the Moonstone from Julia and Rachel Verinder’s estate is far from an ordinary crime not only because of the Diamond’s immense value, but also because—unlike most stereotypes of precious gem heists—it was not executed by a master thief according to a master plan, but rather resulted from the confluence of various circumstances and actions that complicate the question of who is truly guilty, and to what extent. In fact, both the crime and the investigation disrupt straightforward notions of character and identity, suggesting that people, like events (the Diamond’s theft) and innovations (the Diamond’s discovery), are in fact the intersection of often-conflicting desires, relationships, and beliefs, both conscious and unconscious.

The theft of the Moonstone is not a conventional crime, masterminded and committed by a single person, and neither is the investigation. Rather, it is a product of different people’s interlocking circumstances, and each of these people ends up partially responsible for the crime. Franklin Blake actually takes the Moonstone, but he does so unwillingly after the doctor Mr. Candy secretly slips him laudanum (opium) to treat his restless sleep. Rachel sees Franklin take the Diamond, but declines to confront him and shuts down Sergeant Cuff’s search to protect him. The man with the guiltiest intentions, Godfrey Ablewhite, in fact neither plans nor intends to steal the Diamond; rather, he sees an opportunity because of the other characters’ circumstances. Just like the theft, the investigation into the Diamond’s loss is far from a conventional, hierarchical affair; despite the involvement of the crack detective Sergeant Cuff, the mystery of the Diamond’s loss is only resolved because of the confluence of different interested parties’ knowledge, ability, and circumstances. Cuff only enters the picture after the local officer Superintendent Seegrave alienates everyone, and after Cuff does the same and gets fired, Mr. Bruff, Franklin Blake, and Gabriel Betteredge take over the investigation in their own ways, and Ezra Jennings’s scientific insights propel this collective investigation forward. In The Moonstone, then, it is never easy to assign responsibility for the crime and for uncovering the criminal(s); these are both collective efforts, and by writing them as such Collins begins to challenge the very value of individual intention.

Collins’s decision to show a crime and investigation not attributable to any particular agent allows him to make a more fundamental point about human acts and personhood: contrary to stereotypes of Victorian characters as one-dimensional moral archetypes, he depicts conflicted, complicated people struggling to understand their own identities and adapt to imperfect situations. The novel lacks a prototypical, morally pure hero—Franklin Blake is reckless and partially responsible for the theft, and the characters who believe themselves most moral, Miss Clack and Godfrey Ablewhite, are frauds. All of Collins’s characters grapple with internal contradictions; for instance, Miss Clack insists that any kind of sensual thought is sinful and yet swoons in carnal ecstasy every time Godfrey Ablewhite kisses her hand; her conscious moralism is in fact a way of covering up her unconscious sexual desire. Rachel feels obligated both to resolve the case (for her family’s sake) and to protect Franklin (who she believes to be the thief, but loves dearly). Betteredge turns this sense of conflict into comedy when he declares that he is delighted to accommodate Ezra Jennings’s experiment “speaking as a servant,” but personally thinks that Jennings’s “head is full of maggots.” Rachel and Betteredge are both torn between conflicting obligations to themselves and others, so much so that they struggle to decide which part is their true self; Collins’s fixation on internal contradictions gives way to an examination of identity itself.

In fact, the novel frequently pushes the boundaries of human identity, with characters who lose track of who they are, multiply or divide themselves, or turn out to be other characters. When he discovers that he stole the Diamond from Rachel’s room, Franklin begins to reckon with the possibility that he might not truly know himself, and that there is some unconscious, foreign entity in his personality. Conversely, the doctor Mr. Candy becomes completely unable to speak after an accident, and Franklin hardly recognizes him on a visit; if Franklin finds out he is harboring a secret personality, Candy loses the only one he had. The novel is full of characters who mirror one another: Godfrey Ablewhite and Franklin Blake have opposite personalities, fight for Rachel’s heart, and both (in their own way) steal the Diamond, yet one ends up dead and the other happily married; later, Franklin Blake and Ezra Jennings undergo drug withdrawal at the same time, both hoping to repent for the “horrible accusation[s]” that hang over their heads. During the final section of Franklin Blake’s narrative, the problem of identity gets completely twisted: the young prodigy Gooseberry investigates the case narratively as a stand-in for Sergeant Cuff, who then shows up the next day, just before Mr. Bruff sends a surrogate in his place. The sailor who they believe has the Diamond turns out to be Godfrey Ablewhite, wearing a  mask. With people constantly replaced by and replacing themselves with others, The Moonstone turns individuals themselves into as much a mystery as the disappearance of the Diamond.

Ultimately, Collins’s novel is a peculiar precursor of the mystery genre because he chooses to show an ambiguous crime with multiple perpetrators, solved by multiple detectives (one of whom is one of the perpetrators), after which nobody is punished and everyone celebrates a happy resolution even though they never get the Diamond back. This is possible only because Collins’s characters are not united in their desire to retrieve the Diamond, but rather all confront their own individual demons, desires, obligations, and loyalties throughout the search for the stone—they are not sure about themselves and their plans, but in fact constantly grappling with their own identities and trying to make sure they have become the people they meant to be.

Related Themes from Other Texts
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Intention, Identity, and Personality ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Intention, Identity, and Personality appears in each chapter of The Moonstone. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Intention, Identity, and Personality Quotes in The Moonstone

Below you will find the important quotes in The Moonstone related to the theme of Intention, Identity, and Personality.
Prologue: 3 Quotes

The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!

Related Characters: Colonel John Herncastle
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
The Loss of the Diamond: 1 Quotes

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice Robinson Crusoe. In past times, when my wife plagued me; in present times, when I have had a drop too much—Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout. Robinson Crusoe hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.

Related Characters: Gabriel Betteredge (speaker)
Related Symbols: Robinson Crusoe
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 22-3
Explanation and Analysis:
The Loss of the Diamond: 4 Quotes

“Do you know what it looks like to me?” says Rosanna, catching me by the shoulder again. “It looks as if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it - all struggling to get to the surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful deeps! Throw a stone in, Mr Betteredge! Throw a stone in, and let's see the sand suck it down!”
Here was unwholesome talk! Here was an empty stomach feeding on an unquiet mind!

Related Characters: Gabriel Betteredge (speaker), Rosanna Spearman (speaker), Franklin Blake
Related Symbols: The Shivering Sand
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
The Loss of the Diamond: 21 Quotes

I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason. This enabled me to hold firm to my lady's view, which was my view also. This roused my spirit, and made me put a bold face on it before Sergeant Cuff. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!

Related Characters: Gabriel Betteredge (speaker), Miss Rachel Verinder, Sergeant Cuff, Lady Julia Verinder
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 1 Quotes

When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce on us unawares!

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, The Three Indians
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 8 Quotes

“Oh, Rachel! Rachel!” I burst out. “Haven't you seen yet, that my heart yearns to make a Christian of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for you, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?”

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Miss Rachel Verinder
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 3: 3 Quotes

The nightgown itself would reveal the truth; for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its owner's name.

I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.

I found the mark, and read —

MY OWN NAME.

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Rosanna Spearman
Related Symbols: The Shivering Sand
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 3: 7 Quotes

“If you had spoken when you ought to have spoken,” I began: “if you had done me the common justice to explain yourself—”

She broke in on me with a cry of fury. The few words I had said seemed to have lashed her on the instant in to a frenzy of rage.

“Explain myself!” she repeated. “Oh! is there another man like this in the world? I spare him, when my heart is breaking; I screen him when my own character is at stake; and he—of all human beings, he—turns on me now, and tells me that I ought to have explained myself ! After believing in him as I did, after loving him as I did, after thinking of him by day, and dreaming of him by night—he wonders I didn't charge him with his disgrace the first time we met: ‘My heart's darling, you are a Thief! My hero whom I love and honour, you have crept into my room under cover of the night, and stolen my Diamond!’ That is what I ought to have said. You villain, you mean, mean, mean villain, I would have lost fifty Diamonds, rather than see your face lying to me, as I see it lying now!”

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Miss Rachel Verinder (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Page Number: 352
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 3: 8 Quotes

If the excellent Betteredge had been present while I was considering that question, and if he had been let into the secret of my thoughts, he would, no doubt, have declared that the German side of me was, on this occasion, my uppermost side. To speak seriously, it is perhaps possible that my German training was in some degree responsible for the labyrinth of useless speculations in which I now involved myself. For the greater part of the night, I sat smoking, and building up theories, one more profoundly improbable than another. When I did get to sleep, my waking fancies pursued me in dreams. I rose the next morning, with Objective-Subjective and Subjective-Objective inextricably entangled together in my mind; and I began the day which was to witness my next effort at practical action of some kind, by doubting whether I had any sort of right (on purely philosophical grounds) to consider any sort of thing (the Diamond included) as existing at all.

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Gabriel Betteredge
Page Number: 360-1
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 4 Quotes

“Speaking as a servant, I am deeply indebted to you. Speaking as a man, I consider you to be a person whose head is full of maggots, and I take up my testimony against your experiment as a delusion and a snare. Don’t be afraid, on that account, of my feelings as a man getting in the way of my duty as a servant! You shall be obeyed. The maggots notwithstanding, sir, you shall be obeyed. If it ends in your setting the house on fire, Damme if I send for the engines, unless you ring the bell and order them first!”

Related Characters: Gabriel Betteredge (speaker), Franklin Blake , Ezra Jennings
Page Number: 405
Explanation and Analysis:

“I wish I had never taken it out of the bank,” he said to himself. “It was safe in the bank.”

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Gabriel Betteredge, Mr. Bruff, Ezra Jennings
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Page Number: 423
Explanation and Analysis: