{"id":1022,"date":"2022-11-18T01:57:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T01:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2022-11-18T01:57:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T01:57:40","slug":"reverse-reverse-the-inside-out-relationship-between-the-moonstone-and-a-study-in-scarlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2022\/11\/18\/reverse-reverse-the-inside-out-relationship-between-the-moonstone-and-a-study-in-scarlet\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverse, Reverse: The Inside-Out Relationship between The Moonstone and A Study in Scarlet"},"content":{"rendered":"

When moving onto A Study in <\/em>Scarlet, one of the most interesting aspects thus far has been tracing the genre inheritance from The <\/em>Moonstone. In many ways, the focuses seem to be inside out. Made of the same material, but different sides shown. Implicitly, Scarlet <\/em>has much more of a lower-class focus, whereas The Moonstone <\/em>seems more to be concerned with the affairs of the rich, from the granular to large scale. More precisely, Scarlet <\/em>features more of the consequences of the lack of. As the reader sees the story unfold through the eyes of Watson, the inciting incident for the story as a whole is simply that Watson lacks money to live comfortably (8 Conan Doyle). Additionally, what partially causes this is Britain\u2019s own imperialist practices in India and Afghanistan, providing another Moonstone <\/em>connection (Conan Doyle 7). Still, Watson was involved in the upholding of this imperialist practice through battle, whereas the characters in Collins\u2019 work mostly just profit off of the plunder. Additionally, Moonstone <\/em>more directly deals with questions of empire (though what exactly it resolves is debatable) throughout the story. But in Scarlet<\/em>, the reader sees how Britain\u2019s imperialism impacts the \u201caverage\u201d British man as merely a fact of life to uphold, presenting British imperialism merely as something that is<\/em>, whereas the implicit thematic throughline of The Moonstone <\/em>is much more concerned with delving into what this imperialism means, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

For the characters themselves, Moonstone <\/em>presents a fuller, albeit perhaps more upwards tilting, in its effort to exploring a complete picture of British society (which is definitely for the worse). Though narrators like Betteredge and Clack are noted to lack wealth, they still spend their narration with the wealthy and privileged. After all, the tragic chain of events caused by the diamond\u2019s loss occurs due to that a wealthy woman wants \u201cher\u201d diamond back. In contrast, the main site of the crime in Scarlet <\/em>\u201cwore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was one of four which stood back some little way from the street,.., [It] looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary\u2026A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants.\u201d (28 Conan Doyle). Throughout this passage, words like \u201cdreary,\u201d \u201cill-omened,\u201d and \u201csickly\u201d among others reinforce the grimness of life where the victim lived, and the reality facing all of the boarders who live there. Similarly, while Sherlock Holmes is portrayed positively as an eccentric character, the characters of Scarlet <\/em>are more down-to-earth than the colorful persons of Moonstone<\/em>. For example, John Rance, though perhaps not up to Holmes\u2019 level of intelligence, is not presented with the same massive blind spots of Clack or Betteredge In comparison, The Moonstone <\/em>features characters of much more \u201csensational\u201d backgrounds, whether it be through the penitent and troubled former master thief, or the ultimate culprit having a wildly different secret double life. While realistic in their own ways, and much more defined than the common-if- somewhat-suspicious-joe\u00a0of Scarlet.<\/i><\/p>\n

When taking these differences in conjunction, it becomes interesting to think about the novel as almost inverses of each other. The lives of the common English people are more directly featured in Scarlet, but the shadow of empire still impacts the proceedings nevertheless. The Moonstone<\/em>, however, is much more invested in ideas of empire and upper-class concerns, though the voices of those from below still filter through. But as Scarlet <\/em>progresses, it will be interesting to see if this middle\/lower class and insular focus develops further and will perhaps prove itself a true study after all. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Collins, Wilkie.\u00a0The Moonstone.\u00a0<\/em>Penguin Books, 1998.<\/p>\n

Conan Doyle, Arthur.\u00a0A Study in Scarlet<\/em>. Penguin Classics, 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When moving onto A Study in Scarlet, one of the most interesting aspects thus far has been tracing the genre inheritance from The Moonstone. In many ways, the focuses seem to be inside out. Made of the same material, but different sides shown. Implicitly, Scarlet has much more of a lower-class focus, whereas The Moonstone … Continue reading Reverse, Reverse: The Inside-Out Relationship between The Moonstone and A Study in Scarlet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}