What has been less discussed is that the liminality does not work towards resolution. That The Eustace Diamonds relies on the liminality of fact and fiction and of lies and truth is something of a critical commonplace. Such textual ambiguities, resulting from the absence of a single readily legible meaning, serve as a mechanism for generating a sympathetic epistemology-one in which ways of knowing are multiple, not singular. As the narrative becomes increasingly sprawling, encompassing numerous sub-plots and minor characters, the novel's generic status likewise becomes uncertain, representing a fusion of sensation fiction, detective novel, and legal critique.
The liminal status of the necklace renders her own position indeterminate: is she an owner or a thief? To what extent, as a widow and the mother of an infant heir, is she still a member of the Eustace family? These questions become engines of narrative production, generating various accounts of the circumstances under which her husband gave the diamonds to her, and a number of competing stories about how they mysteriously vanish. The plot centers on a young widow's refusal to return a valuable diamond necklace to her husband's family after his death she considers the necklace a gift that she is entitled to keep as her own. Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds (1872) is a novel plagued with questions about interpretation.
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