Introduction

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Sabina Fazli
flectingly uses Robinson Crusoe. This denial ties in with the haze of forgetting and
repressing which surrounds the theft of the Moonstone from Rachel’s cabinet. In
the following I will look at the way the intrusion of the Other is depicted and how
contact with the Other is framed.
The Moonstone: The Three Indians
As the Indians do not speak, their characterisation relies on the perception of the
diverse cast of letter writers. This strategy first and foremost characterises the
people who describe the Indians rather than the Indians themselves. They function
as a foil on which the different writers project their fears and expectations.
The anonymous cousin’s account of the siege of Seringapatam which forms the
Moonstone’s prologue, describes the ancestors of the Brahmins and depicts the
custom of their watch over the diamond since the eleventh-century. The most
striking characteristic in the Indians is the absence of any individual trait. Not only
are the three Indians who follow the Moonstone to England undistinguishable,
they have also been devoted to the same cause in the same manner over many
generations. The lack of distinctive traits among the three Brahmins is complemented
by their featurelessness as compared with their ancestors in Tipu Sultan’s
palace: “They are indistinguishable from each other, a unitary sign of India: as
reliable and as persistent as ants, unchanged across generations, outside of history”
(Dolin 77). For ages, the same task has been fulfilled by an undistinguishable
procession of descendants of the Brahmins from Somnauth. While, in this case,
the Brahmins belong to the realm of “fable” and “fanciful story” (Collins, Moonstone
13), determined by the nameless cousin’s “superstition” (16) surrounding the
Moonstone, they step out of the fairy-tale frame in Betteredge’s description: For
him they are not mythical agents of Vishnu’s will but a threat to the Verinders
family silver, while asserting that he would not “distrust another person because
he happens to be a few shades darker than myself” (26). After the legend of the
prologue, down-to-earth Betteredge relates the Indians only to his narrowly confined
realm of the house. Apart from the comic effect, Betteredge’s character is
established as practical and unconsciously hypocritical. Betteredge who had earlier
admitted to the Indians’ superior manners later describes them as “snaky” and
possessing a “tigerish quickness” (79). He further remarks that the Brahmins’
pursuit of the diamond “didn’t at all square with my [Betteredge’s] English ideas”
(81). The juxtaposition of the English and the Indian runs through other remarks
by Betteredge: “Here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish
Indian Diamond – bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues” (43). He furthermore
condemns the Indians as practicing “hocus-pocus” (28) and later applies
the same term to Ezra Jennings’ experiment (403). For Betteredge, the alleged
epitome of sound Englishness, “the Hindu priests […] represent dangerous tropical
animality that has encroached upon the temperate and familiar regions of Eng-