elements of christianity always pops up unexpectedly in certain parts of the story. I was still wondering the question: what exactly do religion represent in Dubliners?

The last name Mooney reminds me of The Boarding House

Very sharp contrast to Mr. Doran’s view of his future. One is awaiting and expecting while the other barely see any hope or excitement. When we get to this point of the story, who can see how Mrs. Mooney basically pushed the marriage to happen. Did Polly serve all the young men when they came back late at night? Did she treat all of them differently? Surely Mr. Doran has his own problem in not able to defeat his own desire, which causes his sin. However, the case was like a trap long awaiting for him. Mrs. Mooney knew that this will eventually happen, and this is when the young man can argue for nothing but to agree with the marriage even though he doesn't want to. Again, she had a million chance to stop the case, but she didn’t. If Mr. Doran was not having a stable income, or is Mr. Doran had a bad character, or if she noticed anything bad or unsatisfying about, she would definitely take action to set them apart.

A metaphor of how he can predict no bright future awaiting. He seems very much relent to marry Polly, I wonder if it’s because Polly the character or because his fear of getting married.

What kind of sin is it? I’m not really getting this. His sin seems to be defined by Mrs. Mooney. She wants him to feel guilty, and so she could achieve her goal: forcing him to marry her daughter. If Mrs. Mooney really think it’s improper for the pair to be together, she could’ve take action long ago, but she didn’t. She waited till the last minute, like a hunter waiting for the best moment to give her attack.

So clearly forcing the young man to marry her daughter. And still trying to justify her own behavior. I really felt that she is being incredibly selfish, like on the one hand saying oh I’m not doing it for money, I’m doing it for my daughter; but on the other hand really forcing other people to act in the way she want them to, that she thinks would be the most beneficial.

From her description of Mr. Doran in here, it seems like Mr. Doran is a respectful and responsible young man. If so, why would she doubt his love to her daughter previously? Mrs. Mooney’s description is inconsistent. I felt like she is just trying to justify her own action previously by putting the blame(maybe not that much a blame but more of a responsibility) on the young man.

I’m really surprised indeed. Mrs. Mooney herself has suffered from her marriage. Why is she still maintaining the view women is to be honored by marriage? I initially thought that Mrs. Mooney kinda breaks down the social conventions and are able to live a confident life as a single mother. Apparently she is still clutching to social norms in here. Again reminds me of Eveline. They both once made me feel that they are different, that they have this conscious and courage, but eventually they fall back.

A morning in the first day of the week( is Sunday considered the first day of a week?) in early summer. It sounds like a time when beautiful things start to grow and flourish. Everything is so vivid and vital, and full of excitement for a happy summer.

A beautiful morning on a beautiful weekend. How could anyone have then heart to break it?

Doesn’t sound to me like a positive analogy. Emotion is way more complex than a piece of meat. Emotion is not to be controlled like one cut down a piece of meat, especially since the love between the pair is not just a piece of meat with no feeling. They are independent human beings who feels, they shall be painful. It sounds very indifferent for Mrs. Mooney to take the action from this analogy.

Mrs. Mooney, she waited like a hunter, a very patient hunter, who are willing to bear all her thoughts until the moment when she judge it a right time to take action. That is not how parents treat their children, it almost seems Mrs. Mooney is taking too cruel a movement. Even for a hunter, if the prey is the hunter’s own pet, one would hesitate. This does not seem to happen to Mrs. Mooney. She act relentlessly.

This is a bit too much. It is not just the effort to be self-contained and independent, it is a bit too controlling.

Seems like the society still treats female in a quite unfair way. Women are still treated as objects to flirt with instead of receiving much respect. The daughter’s experience contrasts with her mother’s very self-contained character. Maybe this is due to their difference in age? Like when a woman is young, the whole attention would be on her spear ace. But as women grow older, attention shifts to their personalities? Regardless, from Mrs. Mooney’s attempt to make her daughter work in public space we can again see her independence.

She is really a very independent and respectful female figure. She earn men’s respect instead of flirting with them.

Words such as imposing and governed indicates Mrs. Mooney’s characteristic. She is a quite strong and self independent woman. The fact that she dare to break up the marriage and take care of her children alone already differentiates her from female characters from previous stories. Both caught in domestic violence, she made a very different choice from Eveline.

Domestic violence again. Similar to Eveline.

Illusions and beautiful wishes for love fading. Would be interesting to draw a line chart for Words such as light and dark!

After all what the father has done to the family, she still loves him, grappling with the few nice times that she had with him. She seems to know that her father was not intentional in "ruining" her life, it's just that his way of dealing with life is quite improper. He still loves her after all.

Frank seems to be the only one who brings her outside her dull routine which makes her feel oppressed.

so the instability and insecurity causes her struggle?

There's a lot going on in here. When she talk about the happy memories of playing in the field with friends, and even her mother's death, I attribute her struggle of leaving to her sense of belonging to her home. But probably such sense has been lost long ago, long with her mother's death and her brothers' departure. Every other member of her family has escaped her father, now here comes her turn.

Uh all these time I thought she is trying to deal with her sense of home and the happy times that she had in here. But no, home is more about a sense of belonging to her. Her question is whether she should step out of her comfort zone(no longer a comfort zone even) and start a new life or not.

It's a delicate word choice. Is she consenting herself for leaving? It must be hard for her to make this decision. It was almost like she is falling into two parts deep inside, one part telling her that she should leave, one part telling her to stay at home and grapple with the good old memories.

Priest appearing in every story. Is there any correlation between them? What is the priest symbolizing?

Do she still see the place as her home after all these has happened? When. she was young, she probably never imagined there will a a day when she leave her home. Neither would she ever imagine her warm happy home would fell apart as she grow up. Is home still home if the family members are no longer there? Where did the narrator place her sense of belonging?

So are they no longer happy now? Is it because the change of the field, or is it because of the elapse of time(children growing up), or did anything happen to them?

Example of the stereotype of men? Contrasting with the narrator himself. These young gentlemen’s might be how he wish himself to become.

Previously I’ve been assigning the weird difference between the narrator and the girl to a flip of gender difference. Now I wonder if it is in case due to psychological stage? Like the narrator is more naive while the girl is more mature.

Again the girl serves as a inspiration or hope. Seems like the boys are more dependent on her than her to them.

Many description of sound. Can we analyze all the sound descriptions with distant reading? That’d be very interesting. Maybe we can even link it to the rhythm of the story.

Again showing not a very manly manner. Men is usually supposed to be the one taking up responsibilities and be self-sufficient and sustained, while women is more likely dependent on men. The narrator clearly differs from the stereotype. Why?

The narrator, or the boy, refused to say goodbye. He did not want to be the one being left behind, and he feared to see other leaving him. He seems to be very sensitive, and reject any loss in life. Should we describe him as a coward will we realize that the gender role almost flipped. The girls take the burden of representing a vivid life, while the boys become the followers. This is a very interesting switch.

People following and chasing light. All these seem to foreshadow some event coming up. The atmosphere is getting even more intense.

The paragraph is a very detailed description of one day in their life. The author offers color of the sky, lanterns on the street, and even sound echoes. I can almost see the scene forming behind me, a very beautiful scene. One would mourn for the scene to cease, but we all know that it will eventually. The more beauty the scene contains, the faster it will fade, the deeper we will remember. I can’t stop wondering if something bad is going to happen? Is the dark going to take the rule and engulf the last beam of light?

No punctuation in the sentence, making it look long and run on to me. Is this the writing style of that time period, or is it intentional? Is the author trying to complicate things up? Is he hiding something?

"impressionable." Isn't it?

Maybe the narrator respects Father Flynn? Is that why he got angry? Or is it purely due to old Cotter's rudeness?

a contrast between light and dark. Mr. Neave feels himself in the dark, in the shadow where no one sees him, while other people are under the light, under the sun, enjoying their life and visibility.

Is Mr. Neave preferring a servant more than his own family? Again I really feel sad for him. He should be respected more.

A comparison on where the word "dark" appear versus where other colors appear would be really interesting

Mr. Neave is always the one submitting to what his family wants him to do. However, he is indeed the one who sustains the whole family, and he should be the one that the whole family respect. This is not the case in here. People outside the family compliment Mr. Neave's family as an ideal family, but we can feel how disappointed he is to what he experienced.

He has kept silence. He never gave order. He submits to his family.

The word spoil here is again worthy some attention. Characters in this novel tends to blame others for causing the negative situation of some characters. They don't blame the characters themselves. It was like saying: you shouldn't treat him so nice. This is weird. Like those who spoil others seem to be justified because they have a good intention? But is that really the case?

Is Mr. Neave really tired? Or is he feeling/thinking that he's tired because everyone around him tells him that he is tired? People seem to hold quite a negative attitude towards him working. Till now, I haven't seen a single word encouraging him or complimenting his work. This is very disappointing, I feel so sad for him.

again how ignorant and disrespectful

The daughters are ignoring the effort and contribution of their father to the family. They care more about their own interest, and their gratitude or respect towards their father is very shallow. Mr. Neave has started realizing this. He is feeling that his family is not worthy all the effort he put in to bring them a better life.

The girls seems to not know where their luxurious comfortable life comes from. They do not appreciate their father's work but rather try to make him retire. Why would daughters ever say that to their father? This sounds incredibly selfish and ignorant.

very interesting word choice. Spoil kinda puts the blame on other people. Even Mr. Neave himself is not blaming Harold for what he did. Instead, he puts the blame on people around him, and he puts no blame on himself. Is he really different from others? Or are they indeed the same?

Mr. Neave seems to have a long sense of inability, of not being able to stop this situation from the very beginning. The word "ever since" is also interesting, is Harold still doing bad things right now? He probably hasn't changed ever since!

As if by doing this she will remain in the party. She know by heart that she don’t owe the sense of belonging to this party, this is not her life. But by rejecting to set apart from the party she shows her effort to cling on.

Okay now we see how the girls were drawn up to men. Kinda interesting that Mansfield, as a female writer, depicts such characters. Might be ironic.

She is not a part of the group. The girls are not treating her as equal. I wonder if there’s any social class conflict as in the garden party. Is leila’s social status lower than the other girls?

It sounds like a routine for Isabel and her friends to make fun of William and even her own identity as William's wife. Almost sounds like the title "wife of William" is very unwanted, like as if Isabel thought she is restrained by this title. Yet she is enjoying all the benefits this title bestows her: money, social status, William's love, etc. She is so selfish that she only take the good part and teases the bad.

She's not making any change though there is this one moment when she realized it was mean of her to make fun of William's love. Feel really sorry for William.

Very very disrespectful to William, her husband. Isabel showing more of her selfish side. Also, it seems as if she has no child, like they don't even play much of a role in her life. Description on her is always with her friends having fun together.

Now we see this difference in their personality starts affecting their relationship. Why would a husband have nothing to say to his wife after not personally talking to her for so long? When William's not at home he frequently thinks of Isabel, and he clearly loves her. But is he still loving her? Is he loving the NEW her? Is William realizing that there's something wrong between he and his wife?

William probably wishes to be alone with Isabel from the very beginning. However, even though he is back for only one day, Isabel still prefers to spend time with her friends. Quite a huge and obvious gap.

Is this because she doesn't want William to feel unfitted in to the group? Although she is still with a bunch of friends, ever since William was back, she is still paying some attentions to his feelings.

William is probably not that interested in this affair. Probably he doesn't even care people coming to meet him. He probably takes that as a trouble or burden.

This "Hillo" and "Hallo" thing adds a bit playfulness to the text. Like I wouldn't be surprised for Isabel to use "Hillo" since her characteristic is quite outgoing; but William using "Hallo" kinda surprised me. Is "Hallo" a playful expression of "Hello"? If so, why would Willian use it? Is it because he wants to be more attached to Isabel?

Well is he expecting it to be the same crowd? This is like William know that it would probably be a different crowd, but then deep in heart he still has this little wish that it would be a fixed group of people and that Isabel would share his lifestyle.

They seem to enjoy pretty different lifestyles. As I annotated previously, there is an increasing gap between them. William enjoy a more quite and routine life while Isabel urges for a creative and interesting life. Because of this, they probably cannot really live a happy life together since one of them always have to make a sacrifice.

Sounds like William is quite self-abased or introverted, not accepting much new things and new people, and lives a dull life; while Isabel is quite outgoing and love to experience new stuff. The division between them hence increases day by day, and William is having a sense of insecurity that annoys Isabel somehow. Till this point we can already predict a future conflict between then.

If linking this to this previous plots of how her mom wants her to be in the casino but got rejected, we can probably see why she is always waiting. She is always forced into stuff of a elder age, she is always not living in a life of her proper age. There is always this delay in between her heart and her life.

Well actually this is the first time I noticed that the narrator might be a male. Would his gender affect his perspective?

Is she trying to separate between several hers? But why don’t she just call he daughter by her name instead of using long hesitating “ her”?

Okay the word blue is definitely gonna pop up later in the story. Not sure about it’s indication right now but we’ll see.

Very strange relationship within this household. Aren’t Kate supposed to be the servant? Why would the two girls be so careful when asking something from her? Like they fear demanding things from a servant. This is very abnormal. I anticipate their father to play an essential role in shaping such strange situation.

I’m so shocked to read this. What happened? Now it become clear that Constantia is the one taking action though she is younger, and Josephine, seemingly older and braver, is indeed the one always following her younger sister.

It was like, even though their father was dead, they still fear him so much that they think he is just pretending to be dead, but actually keeping his eyes on them in a unknown place.

Or say, they would never be able to get over the fear towards their father. His influence is everywhere in their life. This fear is what they are never able to get rid of even though their father was dead. This fear within their heart doesn’t just go away with their father’s death.

So many rules to obey. The girls are really fear of their father. This deep fear and obedience to their father is vividly portrayed.

The girls seems to be quite obedient to their father, even fearing him. This is quite different from how I initially thought, when they are discussing about the disposal of their father’s hat. It’s was almost like a habit that they always go over their father’s approval before taking any action. So how exactly is the relationship between the girls and their father? We can also see here that the girls, for the first time, struggled to become independent and make their own decisions. This sort of uncertainty about their life and further keeps bothering them.

Feels like Constanta is relating herself the mice. Both of them not knowing what’s waiting for them in the future, both of them keep exploring but ends with nothing. Here is a girl losing her beloved father, losing the person that she can reply on. She is thus ripped off all the joy and relaxing lifestyle that she used to have, and is forced to become independent. We can see her uncertainty about an unknown future.

It has become quite clear that their beloved father was dead and they were to hold the funeral in a few days. The daughters love their father and were all trying to make themselves through such heartbreaking situation. Till now, the girls seems quite thoughtful and kind, and they must have pretty good relationship to unit together to fight this through. I’m indeed expecting some division between them in following plots.

It makes me feel like if she is drowning. Her pose reminds me of Ophelia’s death in Hamlet. Like even though she is still physically alive, her mind is so unsettled that she drowns herself in her thoughts, and these thoughts bothers her, dragging down to a deeper abyss. It is not that she is evil, it’s just the sense of despair within her. Describing her as a statue staring at the ceiling creates this sense of infinity as well, like as if she is kept in this state, not able to get out.

So how is Laurie? Since he understands Laura’s tears, does that mean he retains more conscious? Then probably previously Laura was not asking Laurie about his view because she knew that he would probably stand out once he knew it? Or she simply doesn’t want to disappoint herself by finding Laurie to be no different from others?

Again showing her sympathy is only on the surface. Aligning with her previous work woman case, where she think herself to be a work woman but doesn’t work at all. It’s the same thing here when she is able to bear and enter the lower class household but cannot bear to step in. She can bear faking an impression to other upper class people, showing her bravery and kindness by letting others know she can enter a lower class place, but she reject to really enter into their life. Deep in mind she is still that upper class girl no different from others.

Again the food itself is not what matters, other’s impression is. The rich household protects their fame and try to gain good words from others. Also see here again how the upper class is looking down on the lower class, as if they should be grateful to whatever the upper class give them.

Shifting all the responsibility to her children, just as how Laura tried to shift her pressure onto Laurie. Is it an upper class thing to excuse themselves of anything bad and shift the responsibility to others?

Shall I describe hat here as a motif? If seems to represent the sort of extravagant lifestyle of the upper class ladies.

She is here again trying to find an excuse for herself, she’s shifting the pressure to Laurie. If Laurie agrees with others, than she frees herself from guilty. If Laurie is against others, than Laurie would be the one who step out and speak up since he is a male, all Laura have to do then is to follow Laurie instead of taking the pressure on her own.

Laura is really finding herself an excuse for not taking any action. She on the one hand refuses to admit that she is no different from other upper class people, but on the other really just acts the same as her fellows except she might retain a little more conscious. But this conscious is obviously not enough strong to distinguish her from the rest. Seems like my previous judgement is right.

Even though Laura might have felt something wrong, she still has to obey. Will she really take any action to stop the party from happening in the following plots? I doubt. Like her interaction with the work men, even though she feels like a working girl when she’s by their side eating bread and butter outside, she is not taking any really action to work. Her sympathy or feeling is really just very shallow, deep in her heart she is still that upper class girl with upper class traits. But I shall not judge her this early, let’s wait and see what’s gonna happen next.

Again showing how indifferent and selfish these people are. Their only concern is their own garden party and nothing else. No empathy at all. And thinking back to the cook’s reaction, it seems like not only the upper class but also their servant is acting the same way. The servants are probably acting the same as their master to stress their identity, or to raise their identity through imitating their masters. Is such indifference a symbol of the upper class? Would this have any further affect to the society?

It is just so indifferent. The accident means nothing to the rich household, nothing but an annoying accident that interrupts their garden party. The death of the man and the innocence of the man means nothing for them. Nothing. Not worthy any attention more than a joke or topic during the party.

This sense of the upper class take the life of the lower class as something like an object. Like the upper class is the rich tourist and the lower class is the passive receiver. The narrative is from a upper class perspective looking down on the lower class. It sounds like they were not only just not treating them equal human beings but rather an object.

As if the man’s death doesn’t affect anything. Again stressing the difference between social levels: the upper level doesn’t care about the life of the lower level’s. So indifferent and sarcastic.

Is this showing the accent of the cook? It sounds to me like stressing a difference in social level and hence education to intentionally include accent in the cook’s words.

Sounds like Linda doesn’t have chance to share her feelings with Stanley. She always has to passively accept what he offers, and functions to serve him. This relationship sounds unbalanced, and might lead to conflict in following plots. Linda is also forced to act as the society expected, to become a responsible wife and mother. Does she want this?

The sense of a woman along is interesting. First this gives her her own space without man or affairs from the household. She is in a stage where women usually won’t be in, what would that indicate?

This description also brings reader to the inner stage of a woman. The very detailed descriptions of the beauty of nature would not be a very manly perspective. It is rather like a woman’s inner thought, showing her beautiful and sensitive mind that catches beauty that men probably wouldn’t pay attention to.

Hinting a unstable life? A woman with no home? Take into consideration that women usually appears in households, this is extra weird. Does her husband not love her? Does her husband even...die? Does she have any child? What happened to her? Why did others dislike her? Because she is too unique and the society is not accepting her?

Same as women not understanding why men take the dominant role, no matter what bad things they do they still keep their power?

See, smoking again a theme or motif in here. It is probably an activity of man at that time, but Mrs. Kember adopts it. This means something, probably she is quite unique and differentiates herself from other female. She is probably more male-like.

What is a nemeral? There’s no such word.

I think the narrative here is taking kinda a domestic sort of perspective. With view from a female, reader are able to approach even normal scenes within a household from a very different perspective.

Is this the author’s view( or is there a narrator), or Stanley’s view? It’s interesting for such sentence to appear given that the author was a woman.

Would this be a motif? I’ll keep tracking that in the following reading

Ezra has always been quite a complicated figure. We only has his Tory from his own narrative, he barely exist in any other stories yet played an essential role in the whole case. A nameless hero? Give all his passion and love to others but with himself deceased in the darkness. I don’t know if the rising sun here means the hope and warmth deep inside his mind, or a signature of the resolution of the story, or both. Either, it both contrasted and aligned with Ezra the character, and let the good be with him.

Wow leaving questions of what Mr. Blake will do when it comes to the end of the novel.

Wouldn’t this align with Ablewhite’s own story? Like the fate of the diamond and the fate of Ablewhite was both to be destroyed of their initial intention and replaced by a commercial interest?

I just felt like it would be very interesting to count the number of commas and periods, and then calculate the difference between then. If they differ by a large amount, then the result aligns with the writing style of Cuff: long logical sentence through out his narrative.

I bet if we count the proportion of commas of different narrators, Miss Clack and Jennings would probably rank the top. So many long sentences divided by ,

Rachel's personality continuously to appear quite different from how Miss Clack describes her to be. All the other narrators seem to appreciate Rachel and shape her to be a kind and brave girl. We can see here how bias Miss Clack is and we might thus question the credibility of her words.

Sense of tension, making readers concentrate

It is kinda interesting to notice that these narrators are aware of each other’s existence and may have read each other’s words. Such realization might change the content of their writing and the language they use. They might thus be intentional in narrating in certain styles or addressing certain events.

Yeah so again my conjecture here: although Mr. Ablewhite might not be the one who stole the diamond himself, he must be somehow involved and cannot have claimed himself absolutely innocent.

Wait wait. Why is he doing this? After all these words proving that he cares about Rachel so much and treats her as his own family member, why is he working towards transporting this mysterious and potentially dangerous diamond to her???

Rachel is indeed very kind. See here how Mr. Bruff shows such a different side of Rachel from that of Miss Clack’s narrative. I trust in Mr. Bruff a little more in this case, though he also has his own subjectivity.

Hold on. If this is how Mr. Godfrey is, then how should be explain all his previous actions? Like when he refused to defend his innocence for not stealing the stone, he claimed that it is for the reputation of Miss Rachel. Now that we see this apparently could not have came from his love towards Rachel. Then what is his intention in doing so? Is he also trying to hide something from the public that he remains silence in the case? Maybe he just cannot confidently say that he is innocent! What does this possibly mean? Maybe although he is not the one directly stealing the stone, he still plays a crucial role in the missing of the stone. If this is the case, then the person who steal it might be somehow closely related to Mr. Godfrey, who would that possibly be?

Why is she happy to know all these? Sounds to me that she is so relieved for knowing Mr. Ablewhite’s intention of marrying her. The fact that his proposal of marriage comes from commercial interest but not from the case of the diamond relieved Miss. Rachel. Why? Is she feeling so guilty of him that she is even willing to sacrifice her own marriage for his happiness? Is she now feeling less guilty because she realized Mr. Ablewhite is not that noble a man? How should we unwrap the tension between these characters?

Again proving his selfishness

Why is he describing the year in such a way instead of directly saying 1848? Is it for stressing the year, or maybe stressing his profession?

There's sudden upper case words such as YOU/MY/HIS scattered across this chapter. I wonder why. I guess from here I see the reason: it is to stress the difference between identities, to separate between different people, and such division might potentially add on to stress the conflict between people as well as between different social levels.

Like there is always this conflict between people from different social levels that cannot be resolved. Even when the case if not about such difference, Mr. Ablewhite is self-abased for long that he just blames everything on this pride of the upper level.

To put the blame on Rachel, and to set their son innocent

I felt the shock and the anger in here. The Ablewhites prioritizing their own fame.

There seems to be an ambiguity within her between her christian virtue and her job of honestly record down everything. Now I kinda understand why she always mention Mr. Franklin's cheque. It was almost like an excuse for her to say bad things about other people. Whenever she got dragged back by her Christian belief, she always bounce back with the excuse of the cheque.

As if Mr. Franklin was to induce her to do something bad...yeah she is really funny, especially given that Me. Franklin went over her words as well

felt like Miss Clack put herself in the same level as her relatives, but her relatives might not feel the same. They put her in a lower level. Be cautious cause the way she perceive herself is gonna affect her objectivity.

Miss Clack is indeed very funny. Who would ever think of describing a cheque as "the incubus of existence"??? Also, Mr. Franklin payed her to record the event, yet she described her employer in such an ironic way. It appears as if she wanted to record nothing bad of Mr. Ablewhite or nothing unfortunate on him, but was forced to do so because of Mr. Franklin. Her narrative indeed forms a clear comparison between Mr. Franklin and Mr. Godfrey: one rude but wealthy, the other respectable.

Here comes how other people possibly view Betteredge. The word "tolerated" is very interesting. Does Miss Clack not like Betteredge? Does other members of the house, such as Miss. Rachel and Mrs. Verinder, all have quite a negative attitude towards Betteredge? The difference between how others view Betteredge and how Betteredge views himself is essential since it affects his liability.

knowing that Franklin Blake indeed went over Miss Clack's draft is kinda funny. She straightforwardly described Mr. Franklin as those rich relatives and blamed his disrespect to her(not even hiding his intention for wanting sth. from her). I couldn't help myself imagining how Mr. Franklin felt when viewing this lol

feels like she is trying to stress her difference from others. Maybe she's pointing to Betteredge as not well regularized?

It also seems that she wants to emphasize her identity as possibly from a very educated class, which again distinguishes her from Betteredge.

The Hindoos are willing to sacrifice everything for taking the diamond back while the protagonists are in a totally different mindset which largely limits their behavior. Will they ever be able to defend their own lives without changing the way they think? Or do they have to become HIndoos(share the same mindset) themselves in order to confront them? Is the sacrifice of benevolence necessary?

I felt somehow an analogy between the fate of the diamond and the fate of people. Its sacred identity is only maintained when it keeps its original complete shape. Once it is cut up, even though the price might go higher, the lost identity is never to recover. This is again like, when the damage is done, it is done forever and the mark is there forever. Weirdly reminding me of the Rosanna's words about her identity.

Is it really an exhibition? Or is it just a temporary excuse? This further complicates the case.

The mark is always there. Even though Rosanna might behave with good conduct right now, people still look down on her because of her past. This gossips around her that frequently push her back to her miserable past might change how she act, or maybe it's her own unsettling mind that bothers her.

No way or no hope of going up for Rosanna. Her life might be contrasting with those other characters from a higher social level.

Why would the author specifically mention her? Will she steal the diamond? Will she be misconstrued as the thief?

dragging audience back to the story of the diamond, with the three Indians alive. I'd be very curious about why they are here and what is their relationship to Mr. Franklin.

The story of the Moonstone echoing with the action of the soldiers. We can possibly conjecture that these soldiers taking treasuries wouldn't end up well (or maybe not soldiers in general, but the one taking the stone).

Guilt and misfortune come with the diamond.