The Moonstone Period 2 Chapter 1

This photo is also from Harper’s Weekly. This is the first page of Miss. Clack’s narration, which has two illustrations, one of Miss Clack writing in her diary, the other of Mr. Godfrey is about to be seized from behind by a group of men.

Miss. Clack’s illustration is wildly different to Mr. Godfrey’s illustration in that Miss. Clack looks comfortable, composed, and calm, whereas Mr. Godfrey is dishevelled, weary, and unaware of what is happening around him. 

Due to this, I would argue that even using the illustrations in the chapter, Miss Clack could be read as the wiser of the two characters, but she could also be telling the story to make her seem as such. Miss Clack seems like a more reliable person in this sense as she is does seem calm and picks apart Godfrey’s flaws. She creates dissonance between her narration and the previous narration of Godfrey which is also shown through her telling of the story, but also the depiction of the two characters in the illustrations.

Wilkie Collins may have written Miss. Clack using a lot of good Christian lady tropes but also breaking good Christian values when it was convenient for her, but the illustrations do not show that she is a good Christian lady, instead it shows another side of her. Miss. Clack relates everything back to Christianity and one might expect there to be crosses on the wall or on the table beside her. Instead, Miss. Clack in the illustration seems more like everyone else, or maybe she only talks the talk of a good Christian woman, but she doesn’t present that way in much else in her life.