The Persistence of the Brahmin Priests in Wilkie Collins's the Moonstone
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12410840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Niketa Gupte Narayan (University of Hong Kong, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 783-800 |
| Publication date | 2017-11-08 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victorian Literature and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1060-1503 • E-ISSN: 1470-1553 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1060150317000213 |
| OpenAlex | W2767835352 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 17 |
When T. S. Eliot famously called Wilkie Collins's 1868 novel The Moonstone “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels” ( The Moonstone 1966, v), the implication, presumably, was that the “detectives” are the hero Franklin Blake and other English characters who carry out the detective function, such as the family lawyer, Mr. Bruff. In addition to a detective story, the novel has been read variously as imperialist, anti-imperialist, a narrative invested with economic undertones, and as an exploration of gift theory, among others. In all these iterations, however, the underlying assumption has been that the only real “detectives” in the novel are the English characters; it is they who solve the theft of the diamond and work to police it. Vicki Corkran Willey calls the priests, tongue-in-cheek, “‘villains’. . . working in tandem with two other imported troublemakers – [John] Herncastle's stolen diamond and the drug, opium” (226). Timothy L. Carens describes them as practicing “dutiful self-renunciation” (246) in their search for the diamond, implying that passivity is inherent in such dutifulness, and Jenny Bourne Taylor suggests they are important only because of their use of “[c]lairvoyance [which] is projected on to them as a form of romantic fascination, [and] which they then internalize and represent” (193). Critics are in general agreement, then, that the priests are not central to the novel, and their involvement in the solving of the crime is minimal. The present essay will refute this perspective and argue that, in fact, the Brahmin priests are central to the narrative and far more active (and effective) policing agents than the English characters
Art · HERO · Literature · Narrative · Parallels · Political science · Renunciation · Sociology · Theology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |