Literary Techniques In The Moonstone, By Wilkie Collins

Detective fiction nowadays is taken for granted as a trite genre, abundant in any library collection. However, in Victorian England, this genre was completely undeveloped. In 1868, Wilkie Collins wrote The Moonstone, which served as a remarkable testament to his creative brilliance, for the novel single hardly inaugurated a new genre; one of suspense and mystery. His innovative use of the novel as a historical citation with multiple narrators showed his literary prowess and vision as a writer. The Moonstone remains the archetypal mystery story, for Collins expanded the detective fiction genre with great strides in narration and plot details, which have now become paramount in any mystery thriller. Following its publication, The Moonstone …show more content…
In a traditional novel, one point of view is used and maintained throughout the novel, allowing a specific character to function as an observer and in turn, the narrator. Collins, however, deviates from this norm and supplements his diction with this distinctive narration style. As Sara Constantakis says in Novels for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Novels, “The Moonstone adopts a first person point of view, but various portions of the novel are narrated by different characters. Gabriel Betteredge records his observations in much of the novel, but other parts are narrated by Franklin Blake, Miss Clack, Mathew Bruff and others” (Constantakis 218). This unique narrative allows the novel to be told from a few different perspectives, each with his or her own biases. Each character supplies fragments of information about the plot, which, when combined together, gives form to the novel and furthers the mystery about the Moonstone. This multiple narration style is the novel’s distinguishing hallmark, as it keeps the novel interesting and seemingly …show more content…
During the Victorian era in England, certain undeniable gender stereotypes existed that favored men; they often prevented women from achieving a true state of equality. However, Collins boldly tore down these figurative walls that governed society, and his female characters set the standard for the literary depiction of women. In The Moonstone, Collins’s female characters often served as main characters with bold and intellectual personalities, at times superior than their male counterparts. This practice which was extremely unorthodox at the time. Collins portrays Rachel to be a strong-willed, independent woman who uses logic and reasoning to help in the investigation, while maintaining her composure amidst the theft of her priceless possession. Snodgrass proclaims, “Collins deviates from the stereotypical girl character to make Rachel a strong, determined, close-mouthed, and intuitive detective a characteristic more common in males” (Snodgrass 240). Collins’s character transcended the limitations placed on her gender in Victorian England to portray women in general to be greater