Two Maids in the Corridor

Harper’s Weekly, contrary to All the Year Round, includes illustrations supplemental to the story, which depict scenes from the novel. This illustration depicts the lady’s maid and the housemaid spying on Rosanna. This scene does not actually occur in this portion of the novel, rather, the scene occurred the night before and was related to Sergeant Cuff in an attempt to implicate Rosanna, who then relates the story to Betteredge. Both the scene in the novel and the illustration paint the maids in a very unflattering light. From The Moonstone, “These two devils – I ask your pardon; but how else can you describe a couple of spiteful women?” (Collins 116). The illustration aligns well with the text and its less than flattering description of the women. The image is dark and shadowed, the only light in the image comes from under the door, only shedding enough light on the scene to distinguish the maids, who are garish, black-eyed and suspicious looking. One servant is looking through the keyhole, while the other looks behind them, as an outright symbol of their perceived wrongdoing, clearly, they do not want to get caught in the act. This image portrays the maids, and therefore the servant class as well as women, as low in station and in action, as conniving and quarrel-some. Betteredge and Cuff’s distaste for the maids, and their depictions in the illustration perpetuate these ideas of mistrust and animosity between classes and towards women.

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Edited by John Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 2008.