The Homogenization of Ezra Jennings

            Collins’ seemingly radical agenda is subverted once again by the illustration of Ezra Jennings. In order to render Ezra as more palatable to a post-bellum America still deeply uncomfortable with the ‘amalgamated’ identity, the illustration in part 23 “elide[s] Ezra’s “piebald” (Collins, 321[1]) hair by manipulating light: sunbeams stream across his face, helping to naturalize the black-white divide in his hair” (Leighton & Surridge, 234). The Moonstone’s un-illustrated letterpress instead accentuates the heterogeneous aspects of Ezra’s physicality, “foregrounding instead the issue of racial mixing or amalgamation. Ezra’s piebald hair with its black-white divide prevents the visual “passing” of the character as either white or black. As Collins insists, he is radically both” (Leighton & Surridge, 234). The obfuscation of Ezra’s countenance in Harper’s Weekly paints him with the same brush that detains aspects of Rosanna’s marginalized identity: the homogenization of his cultural markers “emphasizes the sympathetic characteristics of cognition and knowledge,” (Leighton & Surridge, 234) for the American audience. The manipulation of Ezra’s skin tone is common throughout The Moonstone’s American serialization, and occurs in “seemingly random combinations [symbolizing] the impossibility of reading race on the body, the underlying fear being that categorization will fail” (Leighton & Surridge, 233).

[1] Leighton & Surridge’s citation corrected to match the Oxford University Press edition of The Moonstone.

Works Cited:

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Edited by John Sutherland. Oxford University Press, 2008. pp. 321. Print. 2 Dec. 2019

Leighton, Mary Elizabeth and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review Vol.42 No.3, 2009, pp. 233-234 Web. 2 Dec. 2019