Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite Character Analysis

Rachel Verinder’s cousin and another of her love interests, who is revealed at the end of the novel to be the actual thief of the Moonstone. An outwardly charming, honorable, attractive, and charitable man, Godfrey contrasts sharply with the more intellectual, awkward, and uncertain Franklin Blake. Indeed, Gabriel Betteredge is convinced that Rachel will choose to marry Godfrey over Franklin, and then astonished when she rejects Godfrey’s proposal. After the Diamond’s theft, Godfrey returns to London to work with the women’s charities he runs—which, despite their dubious contributions to society, win him an honorable reputation around London. The three Indians later search him for the Diamond, but those around him—and especially his devoted friend Miss Clack, who worships him as a “Christian Hero”—believe them to be in error. He proposes once again to Rachel, but only in an attempt to get the money he needs to cover his debts. However, because Julia Verinder’s will prohibits Rachel’s eventual husband from making such withdrawals, Godfrey and Rachel agree to call off the engagement. Eventually, Sergeant Cuff discovers that the dead sailor from whom the Indians took the Moonstone is actually Godfrey, who was secretly keeping a mistress and villa outside of London, and recklessly spending the money of a trust he was supposed to oversee. He sees selling the Moonstone as an easy way out of his debt; after taking the stone from its original unwitting thief, Franklin Blake, Godfrey pledges it to Mr. Septimus Luker, then withdraws it a year later in hopes of selling it in Amsterdam. The contrast between Godfrey’s external image and his secret vices is an important vehicle for Collins’s critique of Victorian society’s vanity, including its tendency to substitute claims of moral righteousness for actual social change.