Ableism in The Moonstone - Kourtney Gibson

Readers are presented with two very different versions of The Moonstone when comparing the novel without any images to its presentation in All The Year Roud and Harper's Magazine. The images used and advertisements surrounding, and often interrupting, the stories layout mould the subconscious interaction between readers and the content. These sections use advertisements and images to express the devastation of loss in this chapter, loss of both love and life. More devastating than anything though, is how the presentation of this content reinforces the ableist tendencies of Victorian-era society by minimizing Rosanna's value. The death of Rosanna Spearman is tragically overlooked and quickly forgotten, not only in the novel production of The Moonstone but even or glaringly in Harpers Magazine and All The Year Round. Despite these chapters being centred on Rosanna Spearman's suicide, she is not featured in a single photo. Nearly every other character mentioned in the content of the chapter is shown in the images, yet the girl who has the most dramatic and devastating storyline in these sections is missing. The lack of visual space dedicated to Rosanna affects the way readers would interact with her death by lessening the dramatic impact of it as well as minimizing the importance of her loss on the story and its characters. These chapters focus on love and loss in more than one manner as they also show the heartbreak between Rachel and Mr.Franklin as the mystery of theft of the moonstone becomes more tumultuous. By means of advertisments, art work and written pieces these magazines contribute to the systematic minimalization and earasure of differntly-abled peoples, in this case specifically, Rosanna Spearman. 

Works Cited

 All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal 14 Mar. 1868. 162-170. 

Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization 14 Mar. 1868. 322-326. 

Parks, Ann W. Extraordinary Heroines: Finding the Body in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Georgetown University, Ann Arbor, 2014. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/login?url=https://search-proques.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/docview/1529431290?accountid=9838.