The Silencing of Rachel Verinder: Societal Pressure and Female Hysteria in The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Morgan Spraker, University of Florida
From the Victorian era to contemporary times, women have labored under expectations of silence regarding transgressions of their personal autonomy—and feared the consequences of sharing these violations. The female voice often generates societal anxiety: when a woman speaks about inequality, she can upset gender balances, and those with power could lose it. While motives have remained constant, the tactics used to silence women have evolved. Rachel Verinder in The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a literary case study in Victorian era female silence. After the Moonstone is stolen from her bedroom, Rachel falls into a “state of nervous excitement” (Collins 172) and refuses to share information about the theft—despite knowing Franklin is the culprit. Despite her role as the epistolary novel’s female lead, Rachel is without a narrative in her point-of-view. Critical literature has portrayed her silence as a liberated choice; however, Rachel had no true choice in remaining silent regarding the theft due to societal pressure. This same pressure leads to self-repression of her narrative. The people surrounding her, such as Gabriel Betteredge and Franklin Blake, systematically dismissed her behavior as hysteric, thus repressing “threatening” factors about Rachel: her voice and strong convictions.
The Threat of Rachel
Even before the theft, Collins illustrates that certain traits of Rachel’s provoke anxiety in those who surround her, including the novel’s first narrator, Betteredge. Collins demonstrates this uneasiness in a three-part strategy: emphasizing that Rachel is unlike other girls; sexualizing her, despite her young age; and outlining her “masculine” traits. When first describing his “dear pretty Miss Rachel,” Betteredge states that she has “one defect” that set her apart from “other girls of her age” (52). He qualifies that statement to explain that Rachel has “ideas of her own” and was “stiff-necked enough to set the fashions themselves at defiance” (52). Rachel having ideas of her own could function to either insult Rachel or insult all other girls, depending on the perspective; either way, Betteredge’s proclamation that this is a “defect” betrays the fact that these ideas threaten him.
Betteredge also sexualizes Rachel, despite the novel’s action centering on her eighteenth birthday. He says that “to see her sit down, to see her get up, and specially to see her walk, was enough to satisfy any man in his senses that the graces of her figure… were in her flesh and not in her clothes” (52). The anaphoric “to see” emphasizes the male gaze and transforms Rachel into an object of consumption rather than a person. In Victorian Sensation Fiction (2009), Andrew Radford comments that, on a larger scale, the “disturbingly over-sexualized heroine” is a stereotype in sensation genre, a character whose “fierce actions” the readers are “invited to deplore” (Radford 96). Betteredge’s sexualization of Rachel fits her into this category.
Lastly, Betteredge emphasizes a particularly “masculine” trait of Rachel’s: her unflinching honesty. Critic Tamar Heller labeled The Moonstone as two narratives in one: “a masculine one about the triumph of reason, and a feminine one about buried writing” (GoGwilt 74). Rachel encompasses much of the discord between masculinity and femininity. Betteredge states that there was “not so much as the shadow of anything false in [Rachel]” (53); he explains that rather than lying, she simply does not share information. This loyalty would be lauded in a man, yet Betteredge proclaims that Rachel is “devilish self-willed” (53). Knowing that Rachel only tells lies of omission, however, becomes crucial in understanding her later motivations.
Rachel’s Behavior After the Theft
After the Moonstone is stolen, Rachel’s behavior—primarily her refusal to speak and verbal or physical outbursts—becomes another mystery for both the detective characters and readers to decode. Here, Collins begins configuring Rachel as hysterical. In “A Lecture on the Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria” (1866), Julian Althaus characterizes hysteria as “not a simple, but a thousandfold disease” (Althaus 2). He states that “if painful emotions be frequently and powerfully experienced, hysteria is the inevitable result” in women, particularly those aged fifteen to twenty (4). Rachel’s reactions, silent or spoken, are wrought with emotion, and met with confusion on the part of the other characters. Betteredge observes that Rachel was “pale as death, and wrapped up strangely in her own thoughts” (86); Lady Verinder, Rachel’s mother, muses that the theft had laid “some incomprehensible obligation of silence” on her (180). In both cases, abnormality becomes the focus through words such as ‘strangely’ and ‘incomprehensible.’ The sensational language shifts to violent language when Collins describes Rachel’s outbursts. Betteredge notes that Rachel spoke to Franklin “so spitefully, so savagely” and with “an extraordinarily outbreak of ill will” (101). The adverbs emphasize the force of Rachel’s emotions and provide insight into a key aspect of others’ reactions to her behavior: they are not concerned about Rachel, rather the effect her actions may have on the family image.
Family secrets and image threads The Moonstone as a key concept—in the first chapter, Franklin characterizes the tale as “this strange family story of ours” (7). Thus, the other characters react not with genuine concern for Rachel, but scandalization and worry about the effect she may have on the family image. Nobody seeks the source of Rachel’s behavior; rather, they only speculate on her strangeness and focus on returning her to ‘normal.’ When Rachel speaks to Franklin about the theft, her words “astonish him beyond all power of expression” (86). Franklin then relates the conversation to Lady Verinder and Godfrey Ablewhite, both of whom “stopped short” after hearing of Rachel’s conduct, like “persons struck with amazement” (86). During the same interaction, Collins returns to adverbs like “vehemently” and “violently” to characterize Rachel, and describes her appearance as “wild and angry, with fierce eyes and flaming cheeks” (86). Collins, overall, portrays Betteredge, Lady Verinder, Franklin, and Godfrey as sincerely shocked by Rachel; hence, her behavior is entirely filtered through their perception.
The choice of Betteredge, Lady Verinder, Franklin, and Godfrey as witnesses to Rachel’s outburst is important. These four characters, on the surface, share the quality of properly fitting into Victorian society: Lady Verinder runs a reputable household; Betteredge is a dedicated household servant; and Franklin and Godfrey are proper gentlemen. Once the veneer is stripped away, however, they all have flaws and secrets: Lady Verinder is deathly ill; Betteredge is a misogynist; Franklin stole the diamond (albeit unwittingly) and Godfrey later profited from that theft. Yet at this moment, they have all successfully suppressed their distasteful qualities and are watching Rachel fail to do the same. Furthermore, there was a stronger cultural desire for proper behavior at all times from young women, shown in Althaus’ “Lecture.” He states that “perfect control over herself and her demeanor” is part of a “young lady’s education” (2). Later, he adds that hysteria leaves women “unable to fulfill the duties which Providence had imposed upon them, and a burden to themselves and others” (4). Again, the language filters a woman’s autonomy through their obligations to others rather than self-determination for the individual. This concept becomes explicit textually. Betteredge says, “It distressed me to see my young lady forget herself” and that he was “anxious for the honour of the family” (86). The possessive ‘my’ and discussion of family honor illustrates a larger cultural and textual anxiety.
Despite the clear configuration, Rachel is never medically labeled as hysteric. Lady Verinder writes that she will consult “the best medical advice” in London to relieve “the present dreadful state of Rachel’s mind” (180), yet medicine is not explicitly mentioned again. The lacking specificity aligns with a definition of “feminized madness” in Helen Small’s Love’s Madness: Medicine, the Novel, and Female Insanity, 1800-1865 (94). Small explains it as “a category that flouts the crisp contours of exact description and provokes a bewildering array of labels” (94). The lack of specifics overall positions the family image as more important than Rachel’s now-feminized behavior—and yet, while the reasons are different, Rachel still unsettles everyone around her.
Rachel’s conflation of masculine and feminine traits returns as a threat and cause of anxiety, interestingly enough, for the novel’s only female narrator: Rachel’s cousin, Miss Clack. “Middlebrow Feminism and the Politics of Sentiment: From the Moonstone to Dorothy L. Sayers” (2013) mentions the “boying” of Rachel (Schaub 16). Particularly, Schaub notes that Rachel’s “most essential trait” is her honor, which would be commendable in a boy but is “more troubling in a girl of the period” (16). Rachel’s supposed masculinity threatens Miss Clack. She observes not once, but twice, that Rachel addresses Godfrey in “the off-hand manner of one young man talking to another” and laments that Rachel did not take “the smallest notice” of her (203). Later, when Rachel plans to break her engagement with Godfrey, Miss Clack reacts with delight. She notes that Rachel’s pride and stubbornness would be challenges, and Rachel would “turn for sympathy to the nearest person who had sympathy to offer”—Miss Clack herself (248). Miss Clack embodies more traditionally feminine traits, such as her comfort in the domestic sphere and religious nature; combined with her evangelical tendencies, she would want to convert Rachel into a more feminine woman.
Rachel as the Hysteric
Considering others’ reactions to Rachel’s behavior and the anxiety her masculine traits provoke leads to Rachel’s portrayal as hysteric. Characters such as Betteredge and Miss Clack utilize other specialized vocabulary and other strategies to medicalize her emotions to dismantle threatening aspects of her personality. They, alongside others, actively work to suppress Rachel’s sexuality and masculinity through applying social pressure. Rachel’s role is a reactionary one, for she can only act in response to those around her; thus, her silence becomes forced rather than the result of a self-determined choice.
A key example of specialized vocabulary is Betteredge’s explanation of his “Objective-Subjective view” (172). Under the Objective view, he states that the theft sent Rachel into a “state of nervous excitement” and asks: “How are we to expect that she should behave as she might otherwise have behaved?” (172). In his full explanation, Betteredge reaches a more intriguing point: “Rachel, properly speaking, is not Rachel, but Somebody Else. Do I mind being cruelly treated by Somebody Else?” (172). His conclusion is that Rachel has transformed into another person because she exhibits strong emotions. Discussion of the Other figure becomes prominent here, because while she was first othered in relation to other women, she is now transformed in regard to herself. Beyond Rachel, the implication is that a woman with strong emotions is ‘other,’ while a demure and polite woman was ‘normal.’ Althaus confirms this in “Lecture,” where he claims that emotions became “signs of hysteria as soon as they attain[ed] a certain degree of intensity” (2). While Collins is sparing, hysteria is mentioned by name in the text: Miss Clack says that Rachel speaks “the language of hysterics” (209) and mentions her “suppressed hysterics” twice in one passage (234); Rachel herself asks if there was “a form of hysterics that bursts into words instead of tears” (233); and Franklin notes that Rachel speaks with “hysterical passion” (350.” All three examples illustrate suppression of Rachel’s threatening traits or further the Other motif. The “language of hysterics” (209) implies that Rachel’s speech is foreign, while her “hysterical passion” is observed in relation to her distress regarding the Moonstone’s theft. These instances medicalize albeit strong, yet normal female emotions.
Under this scrutiny, Rachel represses her feelings and personality, which is characterized through her silence, outbursts, and frantic speech pattern. Heller explains Rachel’s silence as “not her way of protecting her lover, but as a sign of pathology, of her difficulty in voicing her need” and states that “the symptomatology of hysteria thus neutralizes the power of what had seemed the most threatening about women: their words and their sexuality” (103). This is demonstrated in the few instances Rachel expresses herself on page. Her dialogue is peppered with question marks, exclamation points, short fragments and declarations, italics, and em dashes—all to show the rapid, haphazard flow of her thoughts. Notable passages include the third paragraph on page 350, in which “sobs and tears” burst from her as she confronts Franklin. Another instance of this is during the final experiment to prove Franklin innocent; on page 411, she asks eight questions, without interruption or waiting for an answer, in a nine-sentence paragraph. Her interests are also reduced to one person—Franklin, a man—and her excitable nature is recontextualized from hysteria to concern about Franklin. Additionally, the same phenomenon is seen when she expresses her distress in hiding Franklin’s guilt without saying that Franklin is guilty, while talking to Godfrey.
This passage is also notable, for Rachel makes an explicitly gendered statement regarding expression of emotion: “How can I make a man understand that a feeling which horrifies me at myself, can be a feeling that fascinates me at the same time?” (233). This one sentence, with ‘man’ italicized, illustrates not only that Rachel understands that men are deliberately misinterpreting her conduct, but that she could subsequently be labeled as hysteric. She worries that she must be “out of [her] mind” to speak as she is speaking and emphasizes that Godfrey must not “carry away a wrong impression” (233). She is not without reason in wanting to assuage Godfrey. Radford cites Elaine Showalter’s The Female Malady (1985), in which Showalter comments upon hysteria and Victorian psychiatry. “Preservation of brain stability in the face of almost overwhelming physical odds” was the ultimate goal (94). This was done through “management and regulation” of a woman’s sexuality and physicality, as well as “enforcement in the asylum of those qualities of self-government” (94). Knowing this contextualizes Rachel’s fear, for she has good reason to fear what could happen if she is labeled as insane. She also understands that nobody is trying to help her, so no matter what, Rachel cannot effectively communicate.
Suppressing, Not Empowering
While it could appear that Rachel’s silence was empowered, she had no choice in remaining quiet. Collins constructs in narrative around this fact. In The Fiction of Geopolitics: Afterimages of Culture, from Wilkie Collins to Alfred Hitchcock (2000), Christopher GoGwilt writes that the “‘hypostatic images’ around which the Collins narrative typically freezes… are those of the female hysteric” (71) and that the truth of the theft is “encoded in that series of images of hystericized subjectivity” (72). Thus, hysteria and Rachel’s silence function as plot devices rather than social commentary. Rachel is only seen as completely nonthreatening when she assumes the traditional Victorian role for women: a wife. The last mention of Rachel comes with Betteredge’s off-hand remark that “the married couple went to spend the honeymoon in Scotland,” referring to Rachel and Franklin, and discussion that she could have a child in the future (458). There is no mention of her mental condition or individuality. Rachel’s marriage and childbearing potential is not the “cure” to her insanity, rather a cure for everyone else’s anxieties regarding her sexuality and masculinity—she now conforms to their societal standards.
Addressing the societal pressures that generated Rachel’s silence remains a productive enterprise. Rachel was in a situation in which her personal space was violated and she had few people to whom she could turn; rather than supporting her, the people surrounding her systematically dismissed and medicalized her strong emotions, even going so far as suspecting Rachel of stealing the diamond herself. Understanding literary portrayals of this phenomenon allows insight into contemporary times, where women still face these circumstances. “Threatening” traits that could disrupt gender roles or power balances are seen as dangerous; women who embody masculinity, whether in personality or physically, are targets of feminization. The tactics have changed, and hysteria is no longer a valid psychological diagnosis, yet women still seek autonomy over their own narratives.
Works Cited
Althaus, Julius. “A Lecture on the Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria.” The British Medical
Journal, vol. 1, no. 271, 10 Mar. 1866, pp. 245–248., doi:10.1136/bmj.1.271.245.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Edited by John Sutherland, University Press, 2008.
GoGwilt, Christopher Lloyd. The Fiction of Geopolitics: Afterimages of Culture, from Wilkie
Collins to Alfred Hitchcock. Stanford University Press, 2000.
Radford, Andrew D. Victorian Sensation Fiction. Edited by Nicolas Tredell, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009.
Schaub, Melissa. “Middlebrow Feminism and the Politics of Sentiment: From The Moonstone to
Dorothy L. Sayer.” Modern Language Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 2013, pp. 10–27., doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24616716.
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Morgan Spraker is in her second year at the University of Florida, pursuing a double major in English and sustainability studies. She has had creative works published in Science Fiction Daily and The Fine Print. Today, she is presenting on female hysteria and societal pressure on women in The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins.
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