With Us or Against Us - Ezra Jennings in: Wilkie Collins', The Moonstone

Ezra Jennings, like Limping Lucy and Rosanna, is presented as an “other” in relation to Franklin Blake, Betteredge, and the other characters in Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone. The final sections of Ezra Jennings’ journal entries are presented in two different contexts: Harper’s Weekly magazine in the United States and All the Year Round in Britain. Mossman writes in his article discussing Collins’ work, of the representations of the body and the othering of characters through such representations. The figures of normalcy are created through Franklin Blake and the other upper class, white, and wealthy figures of the novel. Ezra is an “other” because, firstly, his appearance is different, and secondly, his illness sets him apart. Mossman points out that, “Ezra Jennings’s hair, specifically, like Medusa’s snakes, immediately disrupts the norm, is described as “some freak of Nature,” and causes Franklin Blake and the reader to pause and to stare, and at once pushes both out of the comfortable space of normalcy” (492). Ezra is a contradictory character in his appearance and in his nature. He is black and white, he is young and old, and he is a gypsy and an Englishman. In these ways, he is “defined by his body” (492). Through the presentations of The Moonstone in both Harper’s Weekly and All the Year Round, the interpretation of Ezra is strewn by the images and the content surrounding the content of The Moonstone. Harper’s Weekly reinforces the otherness of Ezra Jennings whereas All the Year Round perpetuates ideas of acceptance and naturalism in relation to individualism, difference, and aging in its surrounding content.