Author: Jill

In Dickens’s preface to Oliver Twist, he describes one of his objectives to portray the outcasts of society in all their true form but also to show how Good can survive through adverse circumstances and ultimately triumph.  How can this text be used as a lens in reading Collins’s The Moonstone?  Dickins writes that he will spare none in describing details of the vilest outcasts of society.  Collins’s readers, rather, are exposed to villains as Dickins would describe like “meat, in delicate disguise.”  John Herncastle, would appear a gentleman though likely was a murderer in addition to being a thief.  Godfrey Ablewhite, likewise a thief, is described in Betteredge’s narrative as follows:  “he had a beautiful red and white colour; a smooth round face, shaved as bare as your hand; and a head of lovely long flaxen hair, falling negligently over the poll of his neck…He was a barrister by profession; a ladies’ man by temperament; and a good Samaritan by choice.”  More contrasting descriptions of these villains with Sikes and Fagan in Oliver Twist would be difficult to find.

 

But where this lens brings similarity and clarity are in two of their outcasts: Nancy and Ezra.  Both are social outcasts and degraded.  Both carry a heavy burden throughout their lives.  Collins’s description of Ezra repulses not only Betteridge but also the reader.  After receiving a clear description of his appearance, his demeanor, we as readers, also turn our heads and look the other way. He tries to make himself invisible and we also would rather hide him from view.  And yet, it is interesting to note that Ezra’s profession is as someone who heals and who eases pain.  Moreover he was the means of bringing about the healing of Dr. Candy as well as the riunion of Rachel and Franklin. Nancy, more than once, came to the aid of little Oliver and was fundamental in bringing about justice due him.

 

Both characters also loved and derived some alleviation from this. Dickins writes:  “It is emphatically God’s truth, for it is the truth He leaves in such depraved and miserable breasts, the hope yet lingering behind; the last fair drop of water at the bottom of the dried-up weed-choked well.”  Nancy clung to Sikes to her destruction.  Ezra has been separated from his love but has worked tirelessly to provide for her.  And in Ezra’s final weeks he was permitted to see “the sunny side of human life” and be reconciled with the world he was to leave. (p. 447). To that end, I think Dickins’s goal of “the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last” can be confirmed by Ezra Jennings as well.

In Reading for the Plot, Brooks asserts “in working out and working through plots, as writers and readers, they were engaged in a prime, irreducible act of understanding how human life acquires meaning.” How can this statement be applied as a lens in understanding The Moonstone and in particular Collins’s objective of tracing “the influence of character on circumstances”?  At first reading it would appear that the lens inverts Collins’s premise.  As P.D. James writes in her introduction to The Moonstone, “Character is to direct plot, not plot dominate character”.

Yet while character may be predominant and guides the reader through the plot, ultimately character is shaped as well by circumstances. In order to understand and reveal how human life acquires meaning, character can not only impose on plot but must be molded and formed and developed by situations and events.  Those influences on character then reveal how human life ultimately acquires meaning.

Taking just the Prologue in which to apply this lens, we would have the narrator repulsed by what he has witnessed: a theft and possible multiple murder. John Herncastle is the accused thief and murderer.  This plot reveals the absence of significance of human life for John (jewels are worth more than human life) while dictates the insurmountable importance of human life to the narrator who ultimately refuses a lifelong relationship with his cousin, John, after what he has witnessed.  The way it which the prologue has been structured would imply that plot is influencing character and not the reverse.

As the novel continues, we are lead through various stages of plot as narrated by different characters. Clearly this style of narratorship fulfills Collins’s objective in showing the imprint of character on plot.  The plot develops and is viewed and thus communicated to the reader through the eyes of each particular narrator.  To that extent, character does indeed direct plot.  However, ultimately if the prime and irreducible aim of plot is to understand the significance of human life, then the impact that plot has on character growth is preeminent.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world:  but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, – the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature:  whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man – perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!  Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend?  No, I cannot believe that:   I hold another creed:  which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling:  for it extends hope to all:  it makes Eternity a rest – a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.  Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last:  with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low:  I live in calm, looking to the end. (p. 49)

 

Why does the author place this passage here so early in the story and so early in Jane’s life? And why does she use the voice of such a young child to explain these profound thoughts?  Why again, as in Oliver Twist’s Dick, do we have a child so focused on his final home when he should have the whole of life before him?

 

In Religious Belief in Jane Eyre, Mary Schwingen writes “Brontë also undermines Helen’s absolute and self-abnegating religious beliefs. Jane’s questions may not plant any seeds of doubt within Helen, but the reader would be hard-pressed to miss her point. Helen and, later, St. John Rivers seek happiness in Heaven; Jane is determined to find hers here on Earth.”

 

I partially agree with the author’s statement, but I think Brontë is saying more and “happiness” is too shallow a word to describe what awaits us in the “mighty home”. Helen is sharing her view that life is too short to harbor feelings of resentment, that we should leave redemption to the Creator.  Yes, the final resting place will be Heaven, but she is trying to teach Jane how to live her life to the fullest here on earth.  She is giving guidance on how to separate the crime from the criminal, how to manage injustice which will always be present on earth.  She is providing guidance to Jane, how to put in perspective, wrongs which she will surely encounter.

 

As a result, Jane is strengthened. She challenges Helen but Helen’s being so grounded in her faith provides assurance to Jane for the future.  Jane continues to be focused on justice, but her view does change, and she is subsequently able to forgive both Mrs. Reed and Mr. Rochester.

 

The passage, then, foreshadows the wrongs that will be committed by many throughout the novel with the author’s continuous assertion that redemption will be predominant. The language used is also a precursor to what will evolve later in the novel: Helen speaks of “degeneration” from “man to fiend”.  “Degeneration” is the process that Mr. Rochester uses to describe his wife turning into a monster.  But it also describes his slow moral decline and as such his need for Jane to bring about his redemption.

 

Man and sin are undivided but seen through the Creator’s eyes, there is nothing that is not redeemable and we are given this view, this lens, early on in the novel to set a framework for how Jane may then interpret justice and sin. Looking toward a better place, a home, eternal rest where untouchable principles of thought and light and purity reside, there is no need to hold on to resentment or injustice in this world.

Why do so many novels of the 19^th century diminish the role of motherhood?  For Dickins, why are the mothers frequently absent (Dombey and Son, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist)?  For Jane Austin, the mothers are largely just silly or decorative (Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park).  What does their absence or inadequacy imply?  It is also interesting to note who, if anyone, is filling that role in the respective novels.  In Daisy Miller, it partially falls to the courier, and the consequences are fatal.

 

Exploring more deeply the role of motherhood in Daisy Miller, James would seem to be implying that the figure is absent, negligible, ineffective, insignificant.  As Dames reports in his excerpt A Concise Companion to the Victorian Novel:  “A common enough moment in Victorian fiction – the introductory portrait of a character – here relies on the meaningfulness of facial characteristics, their capacity to unveil the workings of a personality” (Dames p. 101).  James introduces Daisy’s mother using adjectives which describe her non-entity:  “Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose”.  Even her physical introduction is covered in nuances of her insignificance “The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very indistinct, … with a slow and wavering movement”…” (p. 22) the lady in question hovered vaguely about the spot”.  James uses adjectives or adverbs to describe her as a shadow, her lack of presence, her deficiencies as a parent.  Her hair is thin and “frizzled” rather than “curly” which other than being pejorative implies burned or ruined.  This is not an attractive image of a role model for Daisy.  Finally, he uses very strong language in the last chapter when he writes “Mrs. Miller was invisible.”

 

But what if James is actually implying the reverse: that the absence of a strong figure in the role of motherhood is damaging to her children’s growth and ultimately could have fatal consequences?  Mrs. Miller’s social invisibility in the last chapter is due to her bedside presence with her sick daughter.  James is then saying that her daughter is advantaged by her mother’s presence.  Tracing this back throughout the novel, the absence of adequate and effective guidance from her mother has repeated negative consequences for Daisy and ultimately results in her tragic death.  James would thereby seem to be indirectly expounding the importance of motherhood in forming and rearing children.

1. 251 (chapter 30)

The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though the marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. Thus, a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odor of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened

 

1. 275 (chapter 32)

… with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature’s face; and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once in to a new state of being.  Crawling forth, from day to day, to some green sunny spot, they have had such memories wakened up within them by the sight of sky, and hill and plain, and glistening water, that a foretaste of heaven itself has soothed their quick decline, … the memoires which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world.

 

 

The passages are describing heaven, describing an after-life but also a before-life because Dickens connects the past with the future. Indicating that we came from there and will return.  But it is also so hopeful.  He links so many images of nature to Heaven, all gentle, all peace.  There is such a comfort in his descriptions.

 

The passage is really about the temporal space we are in now; that no matter how much drudgery there is in this life, there is a better life. He describes Nancy, Dick, Oliver’s mother, …, their poor lives.  But then says that “Heaven is just” and “that there is a brighter world than this.” (p. 282)

 

Is Dickins talking about redemption? About the fact that we are all redeemable?  The discussion between Rose and Nancy with Rose pleading for Nancy to turn around would suggest so.  Is Dickins saying we are all born the same; that Nature, pure nature, gives us the chance to remember who we are, that we can return, that we will return.

 

Dickins clearly describes “good” and “bad” characters. But who is to judge at the end?  Will the “bad” be punished?  What about Nancy?  Clearly a “bad” character but is she redeemable?  There is so much hope throughout this novel, hope of redemption, hope of a better place, hope that Rose will be healed, hope that Oliver will find Brownlow, hope that Rose will convince Nancy to turn around.  Dickins treats death almost lightly as in the early chapters with the children who die, the small coffins, the abuse and neglect leading to death. But he continually reinforces the message that death is not the end, that there is so much more to come, that for those who have suffered in this world there is a better place to come.  The images he uses from nature are of the purest.  Music and streams and sky and hills and plains and peace.  Always peace.

 

What was he trying to say to the audience at the time? If it was mostly the middle class who read these novels, what message was he trying to convey to them?  The message seems to be for those who are suffering in this world, that there will come a better time and place.  Peace will prevail.  There is injustice in this world as we know it, much injustice, but “Heaven is just.”