Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

*contains spoilers*


Born in Newgate Prison, and thus seemingly destined for a life that will lead her in due time back to where she first saw light and drew breath, the eponymous Moll Flanders is a triumph of characterisation. This remarkable novel, published in 1722, is presented by Defoe in the reflective voice of an elderly Flanders who is finally settled, secure and content after a somewhat long and arduous life of poverty, whoring, thievery and deceit, and so us readers experience what feels like a genuine first-hand report of the lifelong goings-on of a woman of true wits, wiles and courage.


Defoe’s ability to step into the mind and shoes of his characters is so admirable, in fact, that he is therefore able to deal up-front with a wealth of issues and how they personally affect those to whom the reader can relate. Moll relays her position of disadvantage as a woman in mid-to-late seventeenth century Britain (Moll signs off in the late 1600s) as she discusses the offended reactions of the men who have proposed when their prospective bride-to-be merely seeks to assess and assure her future security in enquiring on his character and status;


“No man of common sense will value a woman the less for not giving up herself at the first attack, or for accepting his proposal without inquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes. In short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that, having but one cast of her life, shall call that life away at once, and make matrimony, like death, be a leap in the dark.”


It says something that Moll goes on to marry, and marry, and marry, and marry, and abandons all these but one, once luck finally comes her way – and by then she’s far too old and wearied to really be able to fully enjoy the reaping, and she has years of regrets stacked upon her conscience.


At first Moll resorts to these regretful acts of sin because of poverty and not for joy in the act itself – or for any compulsive need, which becomes another excuse much later on; …had I happened to meet with a sober, good husband, I should have been as faithful and true a wife to him as virtue itself could have formed. If I had been otherwise, the vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination…” And as Moll’s plight becomes more desperate, so, in turn, do her acts; “…the reflections I had made [of remorse] wore quickly off; poverty, as I have said, hardened my heart, and my own necessities made me regardless of anything.” This “anything” would be, in this instance, the murder of a child (whom she robs of a gold necklace in a dark alley) so as to stave off the risk of an immediate alarm at the child’s frightful cry – should he find out he is being robbed and not, as he ostensibly perceives, guided home.


As Moll’s marriage proposals dry up, the proposals to join criminals in risky endeavours increase, and she takes refuge with a governess of understanding as equal to her willingness to do wrong. As what typically happens with anything anywhere, things get worse before they get better, but what we are left with is one hell of a cautionary tale, as Moll herself explains; “Let the experience of one creature completely wicked, and completely miserable, be a storehouse of useful warning to those that read.” Thank you, Mr Defoe – I shall keep that in mind!

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