meaning of moll flanders

The gentleman is married but claims his wife is crazy. I was carried to Newgate; that horrid place! Moll lives in a sort of Hobbesian state of nature for a while, preying on the weak by thieving in a world which supports the survival of the fittest. They part, promising to keep in touch. They end up sleeping together, and Moll steals from him after he passes out. 2. In much of what follows, Defoe displays his characteristic fascination with duplicity and manipulation of others. This man becomes Moll's third husband and, upon discovering that Moll has no wealth, he insists they move to Virginia to live more cheaply. Despite these social attitudes, Moll Flanders manages to excel in the world of crime. There is some debate as to whether or not the character of Flanders can truly be referred to as one of noble character. Richetti, John J., "Daniel Defoe," in Twayne's English Authors Series, G. K. Hall & Co., 1999. . I’ll deal with it briefly here because David Blewett deals with it in detail in the intro to the Penguin edition. Any form of commercial copying or sharing is prohibited. It is vanity that determines Moll's behavior in the first part of the book. There were successful women traders in the 18th century but society made it very difficult for them – capitalism was essentially a masculine dream – the woman’s part lay in basking in the glory of her husband’s success and running the household in as genteel a manner as possible. On one hand, she is wicked and participates in activities no self-respecting woman would ever dream of; but, on the other hand, she ultimately achieves independence, finds happiness with her one true love, and lives out her final days in spiritual accomplishment. By her own account but also she insists by the "opinion of all that knew the family", Moll is the natural superior of these privileged girls: "and in some things, I had the advantage of my ladies, tho' they were my superiors; but they were all the gifts of nature, and which all their fortunes could not furnish.". She has a child by him, and he provides for their care with an apartment and other necessities. VARIANT Mal She moves in with a woman (a captain's widow) who gets married soon after, leaving Moll on her own again. She contrives a way to meet with Jemy. But nevertheless, the title draws us in. For example, after her marriage to the draper ends, Moll realizes that being the former wife of an escaped debtor has its problems. She puts an editorial gloss as it were on the narrative of her life, interpreting the experience or text of her youth through the wisdom of age and repentance. Her integrity, at the very least, is suspect. The same features that drew readers to Moll Flanders three hundred years ago still draw viewers to similar stories on television. Eventually, he tires of Moll and creates a series of deceptions, putting Moll into a position where she must marry his brother, Robin. Leslie Stephen, writing in his book Hours in a Library, picks up on Roscoe's sentiments, writing that Defoe accumulates merely facts in many of his novels, and that the story of Moll Flanders should not claim "any higher interest than that which belongs to the ordinary police report, given with infinite fulness and vivacity of detail. Defoe suggests it’s easy to dismiss criminals and want to hang them all until we get to know one, in this case Moll. While she states throughout the book that she is sorry for the crimes she has committed, she blames others for forcing her to choose such a life. Themes As a Christian I must say I find Moll’s repentance somewhat unconvincing; repentance involves not simply remorse but actively turning away from sin and trying to follow God’s law. Moll and Jemy truly love each other and do not really want to separate. Pretending to frame it in cautionary language about avoiding the slippery slope of avarice and other transgressions, Defoe challenges anyone to "cast any reproach upon it, or our design in publishing it." He agrees that she must return to England. She notes that "money only made a woman agreeable" when she wanted to become a wife, and that only whores and mistresses are chosen because of their personal and physical qualities—and, of course, these relation-ships are built upon money, as well. Moll is sent to Newgate prison to await hanging. Moll likes him, noting that he is a stable man, but she puts off his advances for some time, until he is able to divorce his wife. Jemy believes the parting is necessary but tells Moll he will try to make some money farming in Ireland and then will contact her. But the overall effect is mitigation of Sheppard's guilt by detailed, admiring examination of his criminal techniques. Fielding, Penelope, "Moll Flanders," in Reference Guide to English Literature, 2d ed., Vol. . Moll Flanders has many picaresque elements: the low born rogue, a variety of adventures, sexual freedom, panorama of life reflected in the travels of the protagonist – cf Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews and their travels. In the United States, an archaic term for a gangster's girlfriend. Recent Examples on the Web There was always something fated in Stone’s casting as Ginger, the moll to Robert DeNiro’s casino mogul in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Las Vegas crime epic. © Dr Beth Swan, www.english-lecturer.co.uk. As Defoe arranges it, she is an old woman looking back on her life with complicated retrospection, repentant of course but also undiminished in wit and spirit and in fact pretty satisfied with a good deal of her story. Seduced by the elder brother of the house, she is married off in due course to the younger, but before that dull outcome she has her moments of excitement and self-discovery. Defoe has to maintain a careful balance between Moll’s character and the ideological concerns which underpin her narrative. , something one doesn’t find in picaresque novels. Once there, she buys her freedom and establishes herself and Jemy as proprietors of a plantation, increasing her holdings when she discovers that her mother has died and left her an inheritance. Characteristically, Moll is a sort of ironic chorus on the foolishness she has seen in her time, and her discourse is peppered with wry reflections. In the introduction to the 1989 Penguin edition, David Blewett approves Robert Alter’s definition of Moll’s narrative as ‘quasi-picaresque’; other scholars such as Lincoln Faller tend to emphasise its relation to crime narratives. Her first husband, Robin, is not her choice, but she has a contented, five-year marriage with him, producing two children before he dies. Novak, Maximillian E., "Daniel Defoe," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. Up to now, Moll has defined herself by evading the restraint built into the idea of simple identity. Or is it a story less concerned with the spiritual and moral saving of Moll's soul and more with her financial recovery and ultimate success? Defoe wrote the novel in the first person, with Moll telling the story of her life. Defoe clearly intended, however unsystematically, to portray Moll's life according to the Christian pattern of sin and repentance. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Moll’s association with cloth and lace is apparent, particularly in terms of her career in theft; her sexual career is equally self-evident (she tells us on p.251 that she’s had 13 lovers and she hasn’t finished yet!). Criticism I must stress that transportation was not the easy romantic experience presented in the recent dramatisation of the novel, where they sail off blissfully into the sunset! But within the context of Moll's career as a mother in which she has more or less abandoned or carelessly disposed of a string of children such intensity may seem strangely inconsistent at best. They stay together for two years in a platonic relationship until a night of much wine, after which Moll becomes his mistress for six years. Moll herself is clearly conscious of the parallel and indeed proud of the association in terms of criminal skill: ‘I grew as impudent a thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll Cut-Purse was'(p.266). The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (commonly known simply as Moll Flanders) is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722.It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age. Plot Summary The only women who really had a legal identity were widows. There are two events that restore Moll to self-consciousness. The scene when she first glimpses her son is a fine moment but raises again the recurrent problem of psychological realism. German Moll, from Latin mollis (“ soft, tender, elegiac There was a degree of humanitarian concern about the penal system throughout the century but 18th century people were more concerned with fighting crime than with the rights of criminals. William Smith, who campaigned for prison reform, commented of the Fleet prison: ‘Men and women, felons and disorderly people, are crammed together in one ward in the day, and at night lie on dirty boards in filthy holes, almost unfit for swine. At the very end of her story, Moll wonders at the goodness of Providence, and the abhorrence of her past such wonder provokes, but breaks off the reflection: "I leave the reader to improve these thoughts, as no doubt they will see cause, and I go on to the fact." Moll provides a human face to crime. She ultimately connects up with him for good toward the end of the book when he is brought to Newgate Prison for highway robbery. It is among some of the first works to be written in novel form, a … We’re not party to Moll’s thoughts so we simply don’t know but what is clear is that Moll’s new crime-free lifestyle testifies to the positive potential of transportation. When a mob comes by the next day, looking for Jemy as one of the highwaymen who recently robbed a coach, Moll vouches for him, swearing that he is an upstanding gentleman and not a villain. Moll discovers that her mother did leave her a small plantation that produces a yearly income. 380-410. A year later, Moll returns to Virginia to collect the income on her inherited land, whereupon she learns from her son that her brother/husband is dead. Moll Flanders has many picaresque elements: the low born rogue, a variety of adventures, sexual freedom, panorama of life reflected in the travels of the protagonist - cf Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews and their travels. But Defoe does more than create remarkable coincidences and sweep away troublesome details; Moll shares with her contemporary soap opera sisters a love of disguises. The readers do not know Moll Flanders’ real name. Defoe has written Moll Flanders in an exaggerated fashion, developing a protagonist in Moll who is, for example, not only a good thief but also the richest and most famous thief in the country. Note: This is the text of a final paper one of my students in Freiburg did for the course "The Beginnings of the English Novel" at the University of Freiburg in 1997. Moll is married a total of five times and has many lovers. Defoe is believed to have been born around 1660 to James and Alice Foe in London, England. The exact nature of those moments is worth dwelling on, for they help explain how the book operates on two complementary levels. 20th century readers tend to regard incest simply as a convention of romance, a natural extension of the convention of confused identities. We may like to feel that we are given privileged access to Moll’s feelings but ultimately we cannot be sure that she is not simply providing us with different versions of reality, without ever giving us access to the ‘truth’. Truly, in Moll Flanders, money makes the world go around. Early in the novel, she is mentioned as being in Newgate Prison, where she gives birth to Moll. Introduction On a lighter note, Moll’s outrageousness and dubious moral practices enable Defoe to treat serious subjects like the law with humour and even scandal, thus entertaining the reader. She promises Moll that she will leave her an inheritance apart from what she leaves her son, which she does. This was the period of bourgeois revolution transcendent, of individualism and capitalism let loose, of the transition from the religion-based ethics of feudalism to the secular ethics of capitalism…Property became King'(pp.9-10). By 1721, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. or prison chaplain, is impressed with Moll’s pious behaviour and persuades a senior judge to give her a reprieve, that is to give her time to ask for a pardon rather than hanging her immediately. It has elements of romance such as finding long lost relatives, the rise to gentility, the incest theme (often only implied in romance due to confused identities eg Fielding’s Joseph Andrews thinks at one point that Fanny is his sister – disaster is averted and we find out that she isn’t). She remembers with some distaste two thieves, a man and a woman, with whom she worked briefly. Moll seems to enjoy her occupation and excels in it. But mysterious forces cooperate with economic factors, and it is the devil who lays snares, who leaves on the counter top the unattended bundle that is Moll's first theft, who whispers in her ear, "take the bundle; be quick; do it this moment." Robinson Crusoe (1719), for eg, is, among other things, the narrative of a self-reliant, rather proud man, who comes to recognise his sin and submit to God. Hardly a page goes by in the novel without a mention of money. In the meantime, her bank clerk friend is pressuring her through letters to marry him and offering status reports on his efforts at securing a divorce. Moll, with the help of her former roommate, devises a scheme in which rumors are spread that Moll has a huge fortune. Without realizing it, Moll's immersion in crime past the point of necessity has "hardened" her in vice, slowly transformed her and eroded her powers of moral choice. But when he leaves her the next day, her reaction is intense: "I eat but little, and after dinner I fell into a vehement fit of crying, every now and then, calling him by his name, which was James, O Jemy! She turns to theft because she’s aware that she’s unlikely to be able to find another man to keep her at her age. Criticism Yet even as Moll deplores her moral condition, a note of irrepressible triumph is heard in those twenty-one gold watches, as her pleasure in remembering her triumphs mixes with tough-minded analysis of her moral failure. She does, and they stay together for two years in a platonic relationship. She is able to persuade him to sail to America with her, primarily because she saved his life when she lied to the mob. When she hears the death sentence, she and the reader suddenly become conscious of the terrifying reality of her situation. He drew a distinction between man in society and man as he would be in a state of nature, without law and social regulation as part of the moral and political systems which govern our behaviour. Soon after Moll's birth, she is sent to Virginia as punishment for her thieving. is set in 1650, when incest was made a capital offence; it was still theoretically punishable by death in the 18th century. It thus useful to apply a critical lens to the analysis of literary works in order to acquire a better understanding of social or other types of historical phenomena. Moll dabbles in a few other areas outside of theft and picking pockets, but she realizes that theft is her strong suit and wisely does not venture far from it. They go on to have a long affair, and he supports her financially for a number of years. Yet she also appeals to the reader as Judge, stressing mitigating circumstances. , reflected their concerns about crime and crime prevention, often for tradespeople, and gave frequent portrayals of crime as originating in the lack of self-discipline and idleness of the labouring classes. He refers in Leviathan to this theoretical state of nature as ‘a war of all against all’, a perpetual state of savagery, where ‘every man is enemy to every man’ and life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’. Critics such as Mitchell rightly point out that for Moll, it is a kind of alternative trade – the only form of capitalism easily open to women of the time but such a view denies the clear moral register of the text. Moll is now forty-two years old, no longer a young woman. 3 Mar. For Further Study When Moll Flanders was published in 1722, most reactions to it focused on one of two points: which of the numerous infamous female pickpockets of the day Defoe was writing about when he created Moll, or the base nature of the story itself. While in Newgate, Moll appears to repent, although whether or not she internalises the corrective values of the penal system remains ultimately debatable. He was a trainee for the ministry, a poet, a businessman, a shopkeeper, a historian, an investor, a soldier, and a writer of fictional works as well as political and social tracts. To the eighteenth-century mind, the law was not simply a powerful institution but a form of entertainment. Moll becomes quite accomplished at stealing and is well-known around town for her exploits. Moll meets the gentleman after returning, nearly destitute, to England from Virginia. Moll meets the bank clerk just before she is about to go to Lancashire and feels that she needs someone to hold her money in London while she is away. Defoe continued writing almost up to his death at the approximate age of seventy on April 26, 1731, in London. With every fall from fortune Moll suffers, she has a plan that will put her back on her feet. Ultimately the son swallows his pride and returns to his father, begs forgiveness and offers himself as a servant; Moll’s submission to transportation, a form of slavery, provides a clear parallel. Characters Characters But existing attitudes dictated that only men receive instruction in the more intellectual subjects such as philosophy and science, and that women should study subjects that would contribute to their moral development and to their desirability as marriage prospects. Moll's mother appears twice in the book. Moll is clearly aware of her legal position but attempts to argue herself out of moral and legal obligations according to her personal desires.

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