The plot of Moll Flanders
The
full title of Moll Flanders gives an apt summary of the plot: The Fortunes and
Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc.
Moll
Flanders is born to a mother who has been convicted of a felony and who is
transported to America
soon after her birth. As an infant, Moll lives on public charity, under the
care of a kind widow who teaches her manners and needlework. She grows into a
beautiful teenager and is seduced at an early age. Abandoned by her first
lover, she is compelled to marry his younger brother. He dies after a few
years, and she marries a draper who soon flees the country as a fugitive from
the law. She marries yet again and moves to America, only to find out that her
husband is actually her half-brother. She leaves him in disgust and returns to England, where
she becomes the mistress of a man whose wife has gone insane. He renounces his
affair with Moll after a religious experience.
Moll's
next marriage offer is from a banker whose wife has been cheating on him. Moll
agrees to marry him if he can obtain a divorce, and meanwhile she travels to
the country and marries a rich gentleman in Lancashire.
This man turns out to be a fraud--he is as poor as she is--and they part ways
to seek their fortunes separately. Moll returns to marry the banker, who by
this time has succeeded in divorcing his wife. He dies soon after, however, and
Moll is thrown back upon her own resources once again. She lives in poverty for
several years and then begins stealing. She is quite talented at this new
'trade' and soon becomes an expert thief and a local legend.
Eventually she is caught, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. In prison at
Newgate, she reunites with her Lancashire
husband, who has also been arrested. They both manage to have their sentences
reduced, and they are transported to the colonies, where they begin a new life
as tation owners. In America,
Moll rediscovers her brother and her son and claims the inheritance her mother
has left her. Prosperous and repentant, she returns with her husband to England at the
age of seventy.
Realistic
representation
Moll Flanders
is narrated in retrospective first-person narration by Moll herself in her old
age. Characterisation focuses on personal relationships and feelings but it
stresses the adventurous experiences of the heroine in a simple and direct
style aimed at creating a strong sense of identification and sympathy in the
reader.
The
novel includes "documents" in order to increase the illusion of verifiable fact, it aims at objective, realistic representation. What is important in Moll's world is the counting, measuring,
pricing, weighing and evaluating of the things according to the wealth they
represent and the social status they imply for the possessor.
The novel as a reflection of its time
The story develops around several characters
and describes urban society. The novel embodies the economic and social
problems in Britain
in the first decades of the eighteenth century, such as crime and provisions
for poor orphans. In fact the intent of novel (is) to teach a moral lesson.
Moll Flanders stands quite alone in the world.
The older Moll lives a life of financial security in Virginia. Defoe reveals, through Moll, not
only the kind of necessity that drives the urban poor to a life of crime, but
also the kind of society which allows Moll to prosper. Social identities became
fluid; money could bring power and prestige. Moll's social identity is unfixed
because she uses it in a system of trade, selling sex, affection, or the goods
she steals.
Theft
and prostitution implied the risks of transportation to Virginia, hanging or spending several weeks
in Newgate Prison.
One
of the consequences of this job involve the birth of numerous children, that,
not being able them to attend, were submitted to other families, but they were
often neglected disappeared. So Moll tried to avoid becoming too found of their
children.
In a
way, Moll is Crusoe's female counterpart: her reflections have an economic
basis and are carried on in strict logical sequences.
So
we can affirm that Crusoe's novel wants to have a militant and practical
character to resolve deep problems of 18th century society.
