Moll Flanders

I loved Moll Flanders, the character and the book. They are bawdy, but in that eighteenth century way, that lays everything between the sheets between the lines, and lets you use your own imagination, if you will. Defoe makes this sometimes tragic tale a kind of frolic. There is humor, and you cannot help rooting for the woman who is breaking the law, engaging in indiscriminate sex and sexual manipulations, and robbing people blind, while protesting how sorry she is she had to do it. I confess to not feeling the least sorry for anyone Moll might have harmed, except her children, who were so briefly dealt with that we forget them almost as cavalierly as Moll does.

I suppose Moll is a hardened criminal. She might have had an honest life show more several times during the course of the novel and she failed to secure it. She gets more opportunities than most women in her situation would have gotten, but she seems destined to find herself in a boiling pot time and again. Marriage being one of the few ways a woman might improve her status, Moll never fails to take advantage of a marriage vow. However, even if you only consider her marriage debacles, which I will not discuss here as that would be a major spoiler, you have to admit fate is very unkind. So, she is a criminal, but she is also a survivor, and it is the survivor in her that wins out for me.

She is a precursor for every strong woman who refuses to accept her fate and makes the most of her talents to survive the unsurvivable. She is Amber St. Clare, Scarlett O’Hara, and Dickens’ Nancy, with a different outcome. She’s a roll in the hay, but with purpose. I totally enjoyed her story. show less

I am sometimes afraid that we will have nothing to say to each other at our reader discussion groups. Hah! We talked for over an hour and a half about this picaresque classic. How much was to be considered 'true', considering that it was supposedly a memoir of a repentant woman? How could she say so little about her children? Did she exploit her sexuality or just make the best of the society? She confessed to liking the thrill of theft even after she no longer needed more money, trimmed her stories to her circumstances and her audience, barely mentioned the hardships of crossing the Atlantic (I wonder if Defoe ever did?), learned to make and manage money, and in general navigated a society that was not kind to women without status and show more means. Was Defoe as tuned in to the hardships of women as this book suggests? Or was he more interested in writing a sly, picaresque adventure with the allure of a female protagonist? Did we believe the 'woman's voice'?

Defoe shows us the society of the time, the narrow path between servant and master class in the late 17th century in an urbanizing country as well as a new world. The book is filled with incident - in fact, when Moll has achieved, however temporarily, a quiet life, we hear nothing about it except how it ends. Moll ('not my real name') tells us at the beginning that she ends up in London, secure, married, content, mature, repentant of her sinful life. So the traditional suspense is absent - it was all about how it happened. But it was fun to read, watching her journey and learning about the times. show less

“If a young women once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she believes herself charming charming enough to captive him, 'tis natural to expect the effects of it.”

The full title of this classic novel is 'The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders' and this in many respects an apt summary of this book. It tells the life story of the titular character.

Moll Flanders was born in Newgate Prison, London, the daughter of a convicted felon who is subsequently transported to America shortly after Moll's birth. Moll is initially brought up by the state and later taken by benefactors. She grows up to be a beautiful woman determined to be someone other than a show more servant. This she attempts to do by marrying a variety of wealthy man, one of whom she later learns to her horror after bearing him several children, is actually her half-brother. As various marriages fail for various reasons, her fear of poverty leads her to commit many forms of theft. This way of life she later finds impossible to give up so that even when she became relatively wealthy, she continued stealing.

Through a variety of guises and some quick thinking Moll manages to evade prison for many years, unlike a number of her accomplices who are caught then hung or transported to the colonies, until she became the richest thief in London. Perhaps inevitably, she was finally arrested and taken to Newgate Prison whereupon she is sentenced to transportation to the American colonies. In prison Moll chances upon her most recent living husband, himself a highwayman awaiting sentencing. Whereupon both are transported to Virginia before moving on to Maryland where they become successful plantation owners in their own right.

At the age of almost seventy, Moll returned to London with her husband, where they planned to live out their lives in repentance for their past crimes.

There are several themes that run through this book but perhaps the most prominent one is Greed. The author seems to take great efforts to paint Moll as covetous. Moll sees people in particular her husbands as commodities — they appear little more than business transactions. Then when here first husband dies she seems happy to abandon her children to the care of their paternal grandparents. Then later in life even when she becomes relatively wealthy as a thief she is unable to forsake her criminal ways despite the main initial driving force, notably poverty, no longer applies. She continually raises the financial target where she states she will go on the straight and narrow.

After her arrest repentance then becomes a major theme but even here Defoe seems to aim to paint Moll in a poor light. She repents about not giving up her criminal ways earlier rather than than the actual crimes themselves. She never seems to feel sorry for the people that she wronged.

Now initially I must admit that I found the early years of Moll's life rather tedious and I was tempted on more than one occasion to throw in the towel. However, I persevered and as she re-counted her criminal career I found it much more entertaining. On the whole I found this a little laborious but ultimately am pleased that I managed to finish it but may leave it a while before I challenge another classic. show less

I first read MOLL FLANDERS in 2001, in the midst of an “I’ll Read Classic Lit So's I Can Be Cultured And Stuff” phase. So far as I was concerned, classic novels were Good For You, but they weren’t necessarily enjoyable. I read them to give myself a sense of the wider literary tradition, not for entertainment.

Imagine my surprise when I devoured MOLL FLANDERS in three sittings, one of which took me through nearly a hundred and fifty pages.

The book is almost indecently fun. Moll schemes her way through the England of the 1600s, rising and falling at irregular intervals as her illegal undertakings bear fruit or go awry. She marries often, bears a multitude of children, turns to robbery whenever the need arises (or the opportunity show more presents itself), and deceives very nearly everyone she encounters. Her wild life must have seemed the height of debauchery to eighteenth century readers, many of whom I'm sure gloried in it anyway.

I suppose it’s possible to read MOLL FLANDERS as the chronicle of a woman forced into an indecent life of which she repents most ardently, but I find that a terribly boring take on the situation. I much prefer to view Moll as someone who’s ever in charge of her own destiny. She’s born into fairly low circumstances which she contrives to improve upon by any means necessary. Whether she's talking her way into a rich man’s bed or persuading an elderly fence to help her become London’s most successful pickpocket, she’s always in charge. She caters her lies to each individual, playing on their peculiar vanities in such a way that they can’t help but give in to her whims. Poor luck may set her back a step or two, but she never lets it keep her down for long. As soon as one scheme grows stale, she turns her hand to another. No matter what life throws at her, she finds a way to turn it to her advantage and come out on top.

The narrative conventions of the time dictate that she must deny receiving any satisfaction from her actions, but it’s obvious she enjoys herself immensely. The novel is full of moments where she vows to lead a somber and discreet life... right after she’s finished committing such-and-such a sin, and maybe one more for good measure. And hey, she’s never been involved in that line of illegal work, so she might as well give it a go before she throws in the towel. If it leads to another opportunity of a similar nature... well, so much the better.

Oh, Moll. I frickin’ love you.

Of course, I’m not an eighteenth century reader. It’s entirely possible that the original target audience would’ve been so scandalized by Moll’s doings that they took her cautions and lamentations at face value. Hell, maybe Defoe even intends them that way.

Me, I remain unconvinced of her penitence. She's an adept liar, after all; it's difficult to believe she'd restrain herself from practicing this skill upon the reader. I like to hope she keeps on scheming after the novel’s end, albeit in a wealthier sphere than was previously possible and with a willing partner in her final (or maybe just latest?) husband.

Godspeed to you, Moll, and good luck.

(This review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina.) show less

The quality of Defoe’s work varies wildly and if you have been stung before, fear not, for this is one of the good ones. It’s a proper page turner, but there’s far more to it than that. All the way through there’s this counterbalance between reason on the one hand and crime on the other, caused by either inclination or necessity. You can read it just as a series of plot less set piece scenes but what really fascinated me in Moll’ character was her treatment of her own children. It’s almost psychopathic. Seriously, she abandons all her, what, nine or ten children. I think this behaviour all ties in to being (unintentionally) abandoned by her own mother in Newgate and I think this ties to the reason / crime argument. She’s a show more sinner, not by inclination but because of the appalling events of her life. An argument that’s still going on today, and this novel explores the idea better than anything else I’ve read. show less

Riotous! This book was written in the early 18th century, and I can understand why it would have been a bit of a sensation. Its tale is now pretty tame for our current time and place.
Spaced throughout the novel there are several pages regarding the condition of women at the time, and how they were at the mercy of a male dominated world in everything from their virtue, marriage, childbirth, and employment. While for me, it sometimes became tiring to read such moralizing, it did also make me grateful I live in THIS century.

This is a quite remarkable novel for its time and its authorship. I think Defoe has done an amazing job to get inside the world of women of the late 17th century. Such a feat would be noteworthy in a novel today, let alone three hundred years ago. And I had always thought this was a novel about a woman who, falling on hard times, turns to prostitution. This is a common misconception. Fanny Hill this is most certainly not, thank God.

Despite her not following in Fanny’s footsteps, Moll Flanders is far from innocent. Most of her iniquities however centre on deception and theft. The protagonist is never named, as far as I remember. The name Moll Flanders is one that she acquires during a particularly infamous bout of thievery. At best it show more is an alias.

What amazed me about the novel was the sympathy that Defoe shows his character. Although he himself was no stranger to prison, going to Newgate for debts and political shenanigans, to be able to understand the plight of a woman who has no family nor fortune and lives centuries before the welfare state really struck me.

Through a series of perfectly normal occurrences, Moll finds herself a single mother early on in the novel and circumstances then take horrendous twists to leave her virtually penniless, having had to abandon her family.

She marries numerous times in the novel and gets further into a life of crime until it catches up with her. The ending of the novel is one of redemption, which I did not expect at all. In fact, I really didn’t expect any of it so it was a welcome read. Definitely ahead of its time. show less