Abstract
The chapter discusses the figure of Sergeant Cuff in adaptations of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone: the “original” play by Wilkie Collins, staged in 1877 at the Olympic Theatre; a contemporary play by Robert Kauzlaric, which premiered at Lifeline Theater (Chicago, Il.) in 2011; the 1997 film directed by Robert Bierman; and the 2016 BBC mini-series. Each of the adaptations brings with it a reinterpretation of the roles Collins devised for the protagonists, including Cuff, and their relations. Focus has been placed on the functioning of Cuff as a character whose features make him both familiar and alien, both an assistance and a threat. Of special importance in this respect are gender relations and bonds of loyalty and trust.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Mangham 2010, 388.
- 2.
See Chapter 12 in Summerscale; see also note 1 in Collins The Moonstone, 154–155.
- 3.
The inverted commas are justified in view of Cuff’s statement emphasised in the novel that “Nobody has stolen the Diamond” ( The Moonstone 166; emphasis original)—even though, as readers, we may have some doubts how much we should believe Cuff at this point, we cannot help feeling perplexed, just as Betteredge is when he hears this statement.
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Mydla, J. (2017). Sergeant Cuff and Spectacles of Detective Intrusion in The Moonstone and Its Adaptations. In: Krawczyk-Żywko, L. (eds) Victorian Detectives in Contemporary Culture. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69311-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69311-8_3
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