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The Discovery of the Truth 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moonstone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Detective Methods and Genre Standards
Intention, Identity, and Personality
Science and Religion
Gender and Victorian Morality
Class, Wealth, and Nobility
British Imperialism
Summary
Analysis
In the first section of the Epilogue, “The Statement of Sergeant Cuff's Man (1849),” the narrator explains that he was called to follow the three Indians from London to Rotterdam, where he learns that they had actually departed their boat before leaving England. The narrator returns to England and learns that the Indians have already left for Bombay, at which point Cuff ordered the Bombay authorities to board the vessel on which the Indians are traveling.
The Moonstone ends “happily ever after” before the search for the Diamond is up. After the Diamond’s loss, the task of the novel’s protagonists was to repair the damage caused by the Moonstone’s interference in their lives—its “curse,” as it were—and not necessarily to recover the Diamond. Indeed, once the novel returns to Indian territory, it becomes not at all clear who is the Moonstone’s thief and who is its rightful owner.
Themes
