The Freedmen's Bureau

The theme of race separation and the othering of the different flourishes throughout the entire issue of Harper’s Weekly from July 25, 1868. The image depicted here is a clean split of white men and black men. Like the images discussed previously, this image perpetuates the idea of the “other” in terms of race. In relation to Ezra Jennings, this image placed before his excerpts of the novel instills the idea of a separation of races into the reader’s mind prior to reading. Ezra is not depicted with a physical deformity like Lucy or Rossana however, he is described as being an “other” all the same. As Mossman informs, “The initial keys or clues in this detective dynamic are Ezra’s “gipsy darkness,” his “dreamy” eyes, and his “fleshless” cheeks – that is, the fact that Ezra Jennings is a character of exotic “mixed race” and a character who is an opium eater, an addict of an exotic drug” (492). Reading Harper’s Weekly in its entirety modifies the reader’s ability to treat these differences as unimportant. Placing the idea of race separation and race superiority into the mind of the reader prior to Ezra Jennings’ narration of The Moonstone allows Harper’s Weekly to dictate the interpretation of the section of the novel to follow and to emphasize Ezra Jennings apparent "flaws" in character.