Betteridge's Narration In The Moonstone, By Wilkie Collins

It is nearly impossible to solve a puzzle when not all the pieces are given at the same time, and some pieces given are not necessary to complete the puzzle. In the novel, The Moonstone, information is given piece by piece and the reader has to be able to figure out what is significant to solve the mystery. The author, Wilkie Collins, uses a nontraditional style of writing where he creates seven distinguishable narrators.The multiple differences in the narrators’ styles and opinions confuse and frustrate the reader, which prolongs the discovery of what happened to the diamond and who took it. The first narrator of the novel is the lovable and clueless Mr. Betteridge, in his telling of the story Mr. Betteridge has to restart multiple times

I seem to be wandering off in search of Lord knows what, Lord knows where. We will take a new sheet of paper, if you please, and begin over again, with my best respects to you.”(23). The exasperatingly long-winded Mr. Betteridge cannot focus on the information that would be helpful to discover who took the diamond, this annoys this reader because the discovery of diamond is often overshadowed by whatever Mr. Betteridge decides to write about (most likely it is about Robinson Crusoe).Wilkie Collins chose Mr. Betteridge to tell the events leading up to the stealing of the diamond for exactly this purpose. Therefore, the reader has no idea how to sort out what is relevant and what is extra information. When Franklin declares that he does not believe in medicine and thus highly offends Mr. Candy, it appears to only be extra details that Mr. Betteridge included in one of his many tangents. Mr. Betteridge’s rambling delays the reader from identifying what exactly happened the night the diamond went missing. In addition to Mr. Betteridge, there are more narrators that further the author’s goal to prolong the story, including Drusilla

Ezra relies on so many facts and estimations to convey his narrative he approximated “Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riveted on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me” (419). Ezra’s style of writing leads to the reader not paying attention to the details and merely skimming the text to comprehend the main events. After having multiple pages written about the evidence to support Ezra’s experiment, the reader becomes irritated because the impatience actually get to the real experiment becomes unbearable. One small and critical detail that was included in Ezra’s narrative was the “door of communication” that linked Godfrey’s room to Franklin’s room. When the reader finally learns what happened, this piece of information is part of the conclusion that justified who stole the diamond and how they did it. However, with Ezra’s style of writing, the reader would never catch these miniscule details and therefore would prolong the reader to discover what happened to the diamond. The creation of an engrossing and compelling mystery involves leading the reader off of the correct path and having them draw incorrect conclusions. Mr. Betteridge, Drusilla Clack, and Ezra Jennings all have their own particular aspects that confound