Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The novel
titled Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe paints a realistic picture of the problems
faced by the 17th century society. Narrating in the problems of Moll the
problems that women faced during that period. Moll Flanders recounts the
adventures of a lusty and strong-willed woman who is compelled from earliest
childhood to make her own way in the 17th century England.
The plot is
true in its vigorous style. The novel traces the fall and rise of a beautiful
woman who was born in Newgate Prison. Because of her determination to be
someone other than a servant she sought to marry a wealthy man. She married
many times. Her fear of poverty led her to commit many criminal acts and she
came to be known as the richest thief in London. Finally captured she was taken
to Newgate Prison where she confessed her crimes to her spiritual advisor which
helped her death sentence to be reduced to transportation to the American
colonies, there she spent the rest of her life. In order to know more about
this novel we need to know a little about the history during the Augustine Age.
English
literature written during the rule of Queen Anne, George the first and second
is referred to as the Augustine literature.
Neoclassical Age The Age Of Reason-
The term
Augustine Age is born out of self-conscious imitation of writers contemporary
to Augustus such as Homer, Virgil, Cisero and Horace by many writers of this
age.
It is for the same reason that this era in English literature is also
referred to as the neoclassical age and the age of reason. English society at
this time saw the emergence of powerful middle-class. The pre-eminence of the
middle class made it an age of tolerance, moderation, refined manner and sweet
reasonableness and common sense. This was an age of verbal skill. One of the
key words for the entire period is wit. The upper-class courtiers as well as
everyone with money we're supposed to be verbally skilled and comfortable with
brilliant verbal repartee and clever talking. The wealthy sent their sons on
the grand tour of Europe to acquire the wit, the daughters of the affluent
homes were taught just enough French and Italian words to drop into their
conversations, to make them appear sophisticated. The emphasis on looking right
and acting right meant that this was an age of decorum. Great value was placed
on Manners, on virtues like self-control and above all balance.
One was not
supposed to be outrageous, one was supposed to show control so literature takes
a pedantic bent on this period meaning to show its readers how to think, to
talk, to behave and to interact in the world. Writers viewed themselves as the
shapers of good taste and took the responsibility very seriously. In novel
writing this is an age of conversation. this epistolary form as a story told in
a collection of letters. But it is also enhanced by self-reflection. This was
an age when there was acceptability for self-publicizing. They saw this was not
as a conceit but as self-awareness believing that self-examination was a
requirement for the morally correct person. Hence the high interest in
autobiography, biography, journals, Diaries, memories, publication of Diaries,
collections of letters and other reflections on the self.
Daniel Defoe-
Let us now
move to the next segment of this lesson where we really need to know about the
author that is Daniel Defoe. Along with Richardson, Dafoe is considered the
founder of the English novel. Daniel Defoe was a prolific writer who could and
would turn his hand to almost any topic. He produced some 200 works of
nonfiction prose.
In addition, took 2,000 short essays in periodical
publications several of which he also edited. He has been called as one of the
greatest journalists and the father of journalism. To many of his
contemporaries he was a man who sold his pen to the political party in office
and so was lacking in integrity. He was not taken seriously by literary men
though his skill at writing was acknowledged. Defoe was not a gentleman born or
raised he was an outsider. Being a Puritan the son of a butcher and a suspected
government spy. He changed his name from foe to Defoe and what a coach with his
court of arms on its door with the aspiration of being a gentleman. Throughout
his life Defoe wrote about commercial projects. But his own business ventures
failed and left him with large debts. This burden shadowed the remainder of his
life. Defoe was one of the first to write stories about believable characters
in realistic situations using simple prose. He achieved literary immortality
when in April 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, a travelogue which was based
on the memories of voyages castaways such as Alexander Selkirk who spent four
years and four months on his Island. In the remaining years Defoe concentrated
on books rather than pamphlets. And at the age of 62 he published Moll Flanders.
Defoe choice
of the protagonist in Moll Flanders reflected his interest in the female
experience. Moll is born in Newgate where her mother is under sentence of death
for theft. Her sentence is commuted to transportation to Virginia. The
abandoned child is educated by a gentlewoman. Moll suffers romantic
disillusionment when she is ruined at the hands of a cynical male seducer. She
becomes a woe and a thief but finally she against the status of a gentlewoman
to the spoils of a successful colonial plantation. Defoe died of lethargy in
the Year 1731 at Moorefield and was buried under the name of Mr. Dubow Cripplegate.
He was deeply in debt and in hiding from a creditor.
The beginning of novel in England-
A novel is a
long prose fiction with a plot, some characters and the plot coming to a
logical conclusion through these characters. England is commonly viewed as the
birthplace of modern novel. In England novel writing came into the forefront
only in the late 17th and early 18th century because with the growth of the
middle class by the middle of the 17th century not only could more people read
but they also could spend money on literature.
The
neoclassical novel can be divided in the following categories:
First the
travelogues stories relating to the adventures of a Voyager or traveller
through the unknown as in the case of Robinson Crusoe by Defoe and Gulliver's
Travels by Swift.
The other is
the epistolary novel in which the story develops and resolves itself through
the means of letters and their replies as in Pamela by Richardson.
Lastly there
is the Picaresque ‘The Adventures of a rogue hero’ who wanders from place to
place and encounters many adversaries who are also lawbreakers as in Defoe’s
Moll Flanders.
Structure-Moll Flanders
The
structure of Moll Flanders is episodic rather than an organized plot where Moll
is a female version of the Picaro. Whose adventures are summed up in the
novel's full title the fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders who
was born in Newgate and during a life of continued variety for threescore years.
Besides her childhood was 12 years over, five times a wife, 12 years thief,
eight years a transported felon in Virginia, at last grew rich lived honest and
died a penitent. There was no fixed tenant about normal writing. And so in all
neoclassical novels a contrast between taste and rules can be seen until
fielding forged a theory of novel writing in his Joseph Andrews. Although Defoe
was looked down upon by the intellectual establishment represented by Pope and
Swift. Later developments in literary history have shown that it was he who
would define the literature of a new age and not the so called Augustine's. As
the novel remains the dominant literary form of the 20th century Robinson
Crusoe and Moll Flanders are still widely read.
Picaresque Novel-Moll Flanders
We shall now
discuss about the picaresque novel. the picaresque style in novel writing was
conceived in Spain and was adopted by England. the Spanish word ‘Picaresca’
came from ‘Picaro’ which in English can mean rogue, adventurer, rapscallion. In
a picaresque novel the story is told in a series of loosely connected
Adventures of a rogue protagonist and adventures in a morally corrupt society. However
unlike the idealistic night event hero. However the Picaro is a cynical and immoral
rascal who if given a half a chance would rather live by his wits than by honourable
work. Most Picaresque novels incorporate several defining characters like
satire, comedy, social criticism.
The first
characteristics of Picaresque novel is that it narrates the ups and downs of an
adventurous life accompanied by some spectacular situation changes. It is
usually written in first-person narration with an autobiographical ease of
storytelling by a protagonist seeker on an episodic question for renewal or
justice. Moll Flanders by Defoe recounts the adventures of a robust and a
strong-willed woman who is compelled from earliest childhood to make her own
way in the 17th century England.
The plot is
true Picaresque style. the novel employs a first-person narrator recounting the
adventures of a low-class adventurer who moves from place to place from one
social environment to another an effort to survive. The novel is the chronicle
of Moll’s full lifespan narrated by her in her seventeenth year with wonder and
acceptance. In one sense moll is the product of a Puritan society turn to
worldly zeal the ones dedicated servant of God turned to the worship of wealth,
power, and success. Born to a criminal mother in Newgate Prison left with no
resources but her needle she constantly seeks wealth or a wealthy husband to
free herself from bondage of poverty and the temptations of crime. Nevertheless,
the management of marriages the danger of thievery fascinates moll and when she
finally becomes wealthy she cannot stop disguising herself for new crimes
disdaining the humble trade of seamstress. When she finally settles into
respectability it is with a gentleman not a merchant. Her husband is a rather
pretentious somewhat sentimental highwayman who is not much good as a farmer
but is a considerable sports man. Moll is the representative of a simple middle-class
mercantile figure of the late 17th century.
Women in the 17th century England-
We also need
to know about the role of women and the problems that they face during the 17th
century in England. Through this novel we get to see about the women and their
problems. Moll Flanders paints a realistic picture of the 17th century society narrating
in the problems of Moll those that the women faced in that society. Moll begins
her life as the daughter of a transported convict without any system to protect
them the children of convicts those days were thrown into the world with no
prospects other than starvation or the same life of crime as their parents.
Moll was very lucky to be taken in by the parish a 17th century law did not
compel the parishes to take care of penniless children who were not born there.
As a young girl Moll is forced to serve as a maid. maids were paired very
little but they were fed sheltered and clothed. The fact that women were not
able to support themselves legally always underlies moll decisions that she
needs to get married. When she is widowed at 48 too old to hope to marry again
she has no choice but to begin a life of crime. In the 17th century stealing
was profitable because things were handmade and very expensive. Before the
industrialization, production took an immense amount of labour and though
labour was very cheap the amount which was required to make an object made
theft very profitable.
In the 17th and the 18th centuries prostitution was
widespread and was the other occupation available to women. This was the result
of a social system in which per women could not make an honest living and if
they were seduced they were fallen women who had to be prostitutes. The
punishments for theft and prostitution were very harsh. A thief could be
transported or hanged for stealing a watch or a length of cloth. transportation
to Virginia was considered a terrible punishment even though transported
convicts could eventually hope to be freed and settled in their own land. In
the 17th century pregnant prostitutes were chased from parish to parish since
the authorities would not want to have to take charge of the unwanted infants. They
could take refuge in houses like that of Molls governess who used to bribe the
parish so they wouldn't bother her. And wanted children could be given to
families to be taken care of along with a sum of money. However these children
were often neglected and the rates of child mortality was very high. Perhaps
because of the high rates of child mortality some mothers guarded against
becoming too attached to their children. Other familial ties were also less
strong. People married for money rather than for love.
Social class in the 17th Century:-
We now move
to the next segment of this lesson where we shall discuss the importance of
social class in 17th century in England. Moll longs for upward mobility in a
time and a place that won't allow it. 17th century England had strict rules
about who you are and what you can do with your life. These rules help to
explain Molls downward spiral into prostitution and thievery. She is trapped in
a society into prostitution that gives her few options after all. In
eighteenth-century England people were very conscious of their social positions
and marriages between the wealthy and the poor were not common. Because she was
born of the lower-class and social mobility was not easy to achieve in the 18th
century. Moll desperately wanted to be a part of the upper-class. But despite
her best efforts she did not succeed. Although she learned to dance and speak
French as well as the other girls and was even better singer than the others as
shown in the court. Moll simply wasn't one of them. Marriages of convenience
were the norm.
A marriage of convenience is one in which each party is marrying
for some reason other than love. Quite often it is to improve one's social
status of financial gain. For Example, a young man who has a title but no money
might marry a young lady with money but no title to upgrade his social position
or increase his wealth. Therefore molls first lover and eldest son set to
inherit his father's estate has an attitude towards marriage that was quite
typical at that time as the sister notes for the market is against. And if a
young woman have beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty and all
these to an extreme yet if she have not money, ‘she's nobody’. Throughout her
life moll married many different men in hopes of achieving her goal of upper-class
status. But each of those marriages drastically failed leaving her to follow in
her mother's footsteps as a thief. Though she acquired great amounts of wealth
and material goods through stealing she was never anything more than a thief. Through
all her misdeeds and struggles mall saves her money and that frugality pays off
when she arrives in the new world with the full savings account. In the New
World having money matters the most and people who work hard can improve their
status no matter where they come from.
Summary of the novel- Moll Flanders
We now move
to the next section of this lesson where we would know about the summary of the
novel with special reference to childhood and marriages. Moll Flanders is the
pseudonym of the heroine who does not wish to reveal her true identity. She was
born in Newgate Prison to a mother who was transported to Virginia shortly
after childbirth. Around the age of three she ran away from the gypsies with
whom she had been living. A parish took her in and she was given to the care of
a nurse who brought her up to the age of eight. Then she was allowed to remain
with her nurse instead suing and spinning. Although she should have gone to
service. When her nurse died Moll was 14 she joined the household of the mayor
and learned the same lessons as the daughters of the house. The older son of
the house seduced her. Then the younger one fell in love with her also and
wanted to marry her. The older one convinced Moll to marry the younger one and
she lived as his wife until his death a few years later.
Moll then married a gentleman
Draper with fine manners. He was agreeable but spent her money and soon went
bankrupt. He broke out of jail and left England forever. After a long time Moll
married a gentleman from Virginia pretending to be richer than she was. He took
her to Virginia where she met his mother who turned out to be Molls mother as
well. This discovery made Moll leave her brother, husband and children after
several years of marriage. Back in England she became acquainted with a modest
gentle whose wife was insane. They lived as lovers for several more years until
he fell gravely ill. After he recovered he repented and did not want to see moll
anymore. Moll decided to go not since living was cheaper outside of London. But
before going she took care of financial business by meeting a sober gentleman
who agreed to take care of her money. He was on the lookout for a virtuous wife
and decided to divorce his unfaithful wife and marry Moll when she turned from
the North. Moll thought this would be a good idea if she didn't find anything better
in Lancashire. The friend took Moll to meet someone she thought to be a wealthy
Irish gentleman. He an agreeable and handsome man courted and married her. Then
it turned out that he had married for her money and she had married him for his.
They loved each other but decided that it was practical to apart.
To conclude
a novel like Moll Flanders which enthusiastically recounts all kinds of
misdeeds was in great danger of being condemned on moral grounds. If Defoe
could reinvent it as a useful and edifying work he knew he could profit from it.
