In D.A. Miller’s book, “The Novel and the Police,” he writes, “Disciplinary power constitutively mobilizes a tactic of tact: it is the policing power that never passes for such, but is either invisible or visible only under cover of other, nobler or simply blander intentionalities (to educate, to cure, to produce, to defend)” (Miller, 17).<\/p>\n
In Wilkie Collins’\u00a0The Moonstone<\/em>, religion has taken the form of various entities. From Betteredge’s personal Bible, Robinson Crusoe<\/em>, to the religious Rachel Verinder and her mother, all the way to the esteemed Godfrey Ablewhite and his respectable charity work (yeah, not for long), religion has manifested itself in different ways throughout the story. However,\u00a0when introduced to Miss Clack, the second narrator, religion is presented in a different way. Here, we catch a glimpse of evangelical Christianity.<\/p>\n “Oh, Rachel! Rachel!’ I burst out. ‘Haven’t you seen\u00a0yet<\/em>, that my heart yearns to make a Christian out of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for\u00a0you<\/em>, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?’ (Collins, 269).<\/p>\n After the death of Lady Verinder (that made really sad, of course), Miss Clack tells Rachel that she wants to “make” her a Christian (isn’t she already a Christian?). In a way, Miss Clack\u00a0feels guilty because she feels that it is\u00a0her\u00a0<\/em>fault that she wasn’t able to “save Lady Verinder’s soul\u00a0[from hellfire].” As a result, she feels that her moral duty is to spread the word of God – to use religion as a policing power – to\u00a0others to prevent them from eternal damnation. Throughout her narrative, we have seen her do exactly that: force books onto others, persuade others to go\u00a0to church, etc.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, there is something mysterious – and fallacious –\u00a0about Miss Clack’s character. To be honest, I’m not even quite sure if she understands what it means to be a Christian. In chapter 1 of the second period, she says, “Let your faith be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!” (Collins, 204-205).<\/p>\n In this passage, Miss Clack relates\u00a0Christianity to a stocking – an odd and unseemly comparison, if that. If Miss Clack were truly a Christian, she would argue that we are Christians all of the time. Of course, we\u00a0are sinners, but we are always under God’s love and protection because we have been saved.\u00a0The fact that she believes Christianity can just be “put on at moments notice” shows that she truly isn’t as pious as she seems. Instead, it seems to be a facade – a veneer that she puts on to seem superior to others. Doesn’t that make sense? Think about it: she even takes her “stocking” off at the end of chapter 5 – remember how indignant\u00a0she was for not being written into Lady Verinder’s will?<\/p>\n While Miss Clack repeatedly uses her religion – Christianity – as a policing power to “save others” through invisible means such as words, and visible means such as books and pamphlets, she never really abides by her own rhetoric. To be honest, Lady Verinder should have been the one “policing” Miss Clack, as she seemed much more reverent\u00a0and pious.\u00a0Despite Miss Clack’s eccentricity (what’s a better word I can use?), I am nevertheless moved by her character. Although her understanding of Christianity seems\u00a0skewed, she finds her cause (to make others Christian) noble.<\/p>\n In all,\u00a0this novel is marked by misleading appearances and dispositions. Nevertheless, because we are dealing with a mystery, I think Collins is trying to prove a point. Because we are in the midst of a disappearance, we should keep in mind that these “misleading appearances”\u00a0are marked by differences in\u00a0systems of value.\u00a0Similar to Miss Clack, the Indians, on the surface, seem evil and dangerous, but further down, they find their objective to return the sacred gem\u00a0to India, virtuous and noble. In other words, if<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Miss Clack feels that she is doing the “right” thing, should we judge her (even if we don’t agree)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In D.A. Miller’s book, “The Novel and the Police,” he writes, “Disciplinary power constitutively mobilizes a tactic of tact: it is the policing power that never passes for such, but is either invisible or visible only under cover of other, nobler or simply blander intentionalities (to educate, to cure, to produce, to defend)” (Miller, 17). … Continue reading Miss Clack: Is She Really That Bad?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2975,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138876,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2017","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","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\/2975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}