3. Treasure and Thugs: The East as Mystery and Disorder

The Moonstone (1868) and Gunga Din (1892) were both written in the heyday of Empire and first filmed when that Empire was still in place, albeit threatened by World War. The Moonstone was the first detective novel that drew upon colonial mysteries for suspense. It depicted the East as a sinister mystery seen in the domestic framework of the English country home. Kipling’s Gunga Din, is of the same broad period of Victorian hegemony. However, by that time, the perceived roguery of East India company fortune hunters was replaced by the Crown. The film adaptions of both novels give cinematic mileage to the East as a place of mystery, violence, lawlessness, superstitious madness, and inscrutability. Its religion is shown as bizarre and corrupt and violent, and its subalterns are loyal to the colonizer rather than their own leaders.