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Godfrey Ablewhite
Fictional character From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Godfrey Ablewhite is a character in Wilkie Collins' 1868 novel The Moonstone.[1] A vocal philanthropist, he is one of the rival suitors of Rachel Verinder, to whom he is briefly engaged before his mercenary motives are revealed.
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Religiosity challenged?
Godfrey is explicitly and repeatedly linked to Exeter Hall, site of the most theatrical elements in evangelical preaching:[2] "Exeter Hall again....the performance with the tongue".[3] His unmasking as the villain of the piece has therefore been taken by some as a literal demonstration on the author's part of the hypocrisy inherent in sermonising - the gap between words preached and actual actions.[4] Others, however, point out that Collins has softened his attack on Victorian morality in at least two ways: he changed his mind about making Ablewhite (initially) a member of the clergy;[5] and, by making him an overt hypocrite, philanthropist by day, philanderer by night, he distracted attention from the inherent hypocrisy in the moralistic position.[6]
The result is to leave Godfrey as a rather bland, externalised figure - though arguably one who serves the book's purposes as villain rather better than did the more flamboyant Count Fosco in The Woman in White.[7]
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