Moll Flanders is a novel written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1722. It follows the reportedly true story of Moll Flanders, born in Newgate Prison. She wishes to escape her life of poverty, which leads her to commit many crimes, marry many men, and accidentally marry her brother.
Daniel Defoe based the character of Moll Flanders on Moll King. Moll King was a London-based criminal. She was known to steal and break into homes. Defoe met King in Newgate Prison, where the story of Moll Flanders begins.
Summary of Moll Flanders
Moll was born in Newgate prison. Pixabay.
Moll Flanders is born in Newgate Prison. Her mother is eventually transferred to the North American colonies, so Moll is raised by a foster mother from the age of 3. She becomes her foster family's servant, and both of the sons are in love with her. The elder brother convinces her to share his bed but prefers she marries the younger brother instead. Moll does and is left a widow after he dies five years into the marriage. She passes her children's guardianship to her in-laws and begins her first con: She presents herself as a rich widow to attract a man to marry and provide her with the security she needs.
In the 17th century, when the story of Moll Flanders takes place, the colonies in North America were controlled by England, France, and Spain. Prisoners were sometimes sent to the colonies from England where they could buy land and live freely to avoid execution. This is why Moll's mother and eventually Moll are sent to the colonies.
The first man she marries goes bankrupt and flees Europe, where she is left alone. Their only child dies, and he encourages her to forget him. Soon, Moll marries a man that takes her to the Virginia colony. She is even introduced to his mother, and together Moll and her second husband have three children. To Moll's horror, she finds out her mother-in-law is indeed her biological mother and that she was married to her half-brother.
Moll accidentally marries her half-brother. Pixabay.
Moll flees and returns to England without her children. She goes to Bath where she meets a married man. The married man has a confined wife, who is confined for her insanity. They develop an intimate relationship that results in three children, most of whom die. He repeatedly falls ill and takes it as a sign to repent his sins and break off the affair. He returns to his wife but agrees to care for his and Moll's only living child.
Moll finds a bank clerk. The bank clerk is married to an adulterous woman and proposes to Moll who is now 42. She entrusts him with all of her finances. She cannot marry the bank clerk until he is divorced, so she continues her wealthy widow scheme and traps a wealthy man in Lancashire. A new friend of Moll's even confirms Moll's wealthy social status, despite it being false. Moll marries the rich man who owns land in Ireland. However, Moll and the wealthy man quickly realize Moll's new friend conned them both. Moll's new friend made Moll think the wealthy man was rich and Moll's new friend made the wealthy man think Moll was rich.
The wealthy man decides to end the marriage but promises to leave his money to her. They part ways, but soon Moll learns she is pregnant. Unable to afford to care for her child, Moll sells her newborn child to a country lady for 5 pounds a year. Moll returns to the now divorced bank clerk, and they marry. Despite Moll's guilt in tricking an innocent man to marry her, they live happily for five years. However, after falling bankrupt, he dies.
Moll has no option now other than to become a professional thief. She uses her skills of beauty and charm and reaches financial stability. Moll is joined by her governess, and the two become very successful thieves. The governess had been a successful thief prior to meeting Moll and is able to help Moll in her schemes. Moll is caught stealing by two maids and is sent to Newgate prison. In prison, she is reunited with her soulmate: the wealthy Lancashire man. He was imprisoned for robbing.
Moll is a professional thief. Pixabay.
Moll is sentenced to death on the charge of a felony, but she convinces the minister that she repents her sins. The minister accepts her repentance, and Moll and her Lancashire husband are sent to the colonies, where they will avoid death. She lives happily in the colonies with her husband. While there, she learns that her mother left her a plantation. She also learns her brother-husband and their remaining son are still alive.
She disguises herself and introduces herself to her brother-husband and son. She learns that they both own a 50 servant farm in Maryland. Moll reveals to her son that she is his mother, and he gives her Moll's mother's inheritance. The inheritance includes a farm and a 100 pound a year income. She makes her son the heir and gives him a stolen golden watch.
Moll's brother-husband dies, and so Moll tells her Lancashire husband everything. He is not bothered and sees no fault in her action. At the age of 70, Moll returns to England with her Lancashire husband. Both feel truly repent for their wicked ways.
Characters in Moll Flanders
Moll is the protagonist of Moll Flanders, and a majority of the characters that appear in the novel are her many husbands and people she has affairs with. Below you will find a chart that will help you keep track of Moll's many affairs.
Moll herself is an interesting character. She believes that if England had a better system for caring for orphaned children, she would not have been led into a life of crime. Therefore, poor girls have to do everything they can to survive. Despite the vanity we see in Moll, her fear of poverty is what motivates her to commit crimes. It is also important to note, that Moll Flanders is an alias the protagonist uses to protect her identity.
Other characters include Moll's mother and Moll's many children. The most prominent child that is mentioned is Moll's only living son with her husband-brother. Moll's mother can be seen as the origin of Moll's criminal ways, as it was her mother's imprisonment that left Moll an orphan, and according to Moll's logic, girls who are poor will do anything to leave poverty.
| Character | Description | Marriage/ Number of children |
| Older brother in her foster home | He was Moll's first love and the one who convinced her to share his bed. | Despite acting as if they were married, they never actually were or had children. |
| The younger brother at the foster home | Moll's first husband who she doesn't love and is sometimes disgusted with. | They marry and have two children. |
| The draper | Moll's second husband who goes bankrupt and flees Europe, leaving Moll behind. | They marry and have one child who dies. |
| Half-Brother (Plantation owner) | Moll's third husband. She does not realize that they are half-siblings until after they have children. | They marry and have three children, but only one child survives. |
| The Married Man | Moll has an affair with the married man in the hopes of finding financial security. He leaves her after he falls ill and feels he needs to repent. | They never married but they did have three children, only one of whom survives. |
| Lancashire Husband | Moll's fourth husband, who is just as poor as she is. They find out they were conned into thinking one another were rich. They separate on terms of poverty. Moll believes he is her soulmate, and they later reunite in prison. | They marry and have one child who Moll sells to a country lady. |
| The Bank Clerk | Moll's fifth husband, who she feels guilty about marrying. They are married happily for five years before he goes bankrupt and dies. | They marry and have two children. |
Many characters in Moll Flanders don't have names and are only referred to by a descriptive title. As the story is meant to be a personal account of a criminal past, Defoe chose to leave many characters unnamed for the purpose of "protecting" the protagonist. If Moll Flanders is an alias, then everyone in her life must have an alias as well in order to keep their identities hidden. Therefore many of the characters are simply given descriptive titles, usually relating to their occupation or position in society.
Analysis of Moll Flanders
Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders in a way that makes the story seem like an autobiographical account of Moll's life. The novel is episodic, and events happen spontaneously with little to no transition—much like a person recounting stories from their own life. The only sense of continuity in the plot is Moll's characterization.
Genre and Writing Style
Moll Flanders belongs to the Picaresque novel genre of literature.
A picaresque novel is a genre of literature that focuses on a hero that is characterized as a rogue. The hero oftentimes comes from low economic standing and can make their way through a corrupt society with the use of wits and charms. It originated in the 16th century.
Moll Flanders follows the story of Moll, the story's unlikely "hero", and follows her adventures as she tries to use her wit and charm to climb out of a life of poverty. Moll Flanders is in the first-person point of view, and since it is a story told from Moll's perspective, Defoe made sure the writing style reflects Moll's witty, honest, and straightforward way of speaking. Defoe doesn't spend much time worrying about filling the novel with detailed descriptions of characters or settings.The only information we are provided is information Moll finds important. For this reason, descriptions of settings are rare, and some of the characters don't even have names. Moll refers to some of her husbands and lovers as titles such as "the eldest brother" and "Lancashire husband" which shows Moll sees most of her interactions with men as economical rather than love.
The novel's writing is centered on Moll and it is clearly evident how vain she is:
I had with all these the common vanity of my sex, viz. that being really taken for very handsome, or, if you please, for a great beauty, I very well knew it, and had as good an opinion of myself as anybody else could have of me; and particularly I loved to hear anybody speak of it, which could not but happen to me sometimes, and was a great satisfaction to me" (Part 1).
In this excerpt from Moll Flanders, the reader is provided with an example of Defoe's writing style in Moll Flanders. It is from the first-person point of view and is directly from Moll's vain thoughts.
Moll Flanders Themes
Moll Flanders contains a few key themes that are worth exploring, such as gender roles, money, and morality.
Gender roles: women and society
When Defoe wrote Moll Flanders in the 18th century, women had very little choice and agency. Upper-class women were expected to marry someone with societal rank, run a household, and have children. Lower-class women usually had fewer options: having to choose between living as a servant, becoming a wife or a mistress, or committing crimes such as thievery and prostitution. The life of a woman, especially a lower class woman, was incredibly difficult—and Defoe portrays this accurately in Moll Flanders. Moll is born into poverty, but she has the education of an upper-class woman. She spends her life wishing to bring herself out of poverty in order to persevere in life. Her many schemes led her into wild situations, some of which are comical. The underlying message, however, is that women in the 18th century lacked autonomy, agency, or freedom to live as they wish.
After reading Moll Flanders, do you believe Defoe was taking a sympathetic view on the life of lower-class women or simply using their life situations as a source of comedy?
Money
Money is Moll's main motivation. Pixabay.
Moll desires one thing in life: money. Money can raise herself out of poverty drives all of Moll's motivations and actions. She marries different men, sells her child, or simply sends them away, and eventually, she becomes a thief. Everything in Moll's life, including the men and children, have economic value to Moll, which is why she is able to rid of her children without much remorse or pain and is able to remarry so many times.
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, she had as good want them all for nothing but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands."
In this quote, Moll brings up the point that without money a woman has no power, even if she has beauty, birth, and breeding. Wealthy women are more desirable and attractive for marriage. For this reason, Moll pretends to be a wealthy widow.
Morality and criminality
Moll reasons that she commits crimes because she is poor. Pixabay.
Moll is aware of how her actions are morally wrong and how she did indeed commit many crimes. As the tale is told in hindsight from Moll's perspective after repenting all her sins, she is able to fully describe the cycle of morality and criminality she falls into. She commits a crime or does something morally wrong, feels guilty, and then does it again. Sometimes Moll faces no consequences for her actions.
the reproaches of my own conscience were such as I cannot express, for I was not blind to my own crime; and I reflected that I might with less offence have continued with my brother, and lived with him as a wife, since there was no crime in our marriage on that score, neither of us knowing it."
Moll is quite aware she has committed crimes, and she does feel remorseful over them—but in most scenarios, she finds ways to justify them. In this case, she argues her ignorance makes her innocent of the crime of marrying her brother.
But why does she keep committing numerous crimes such as stealing, adultery, and prostitution? Well according to Moll, her poor upbringing means she must commit these crimes to survive in a cruel, unfair world. This makes the reader question if crimes ever have a moral justification or if Moll is simply avoidant responsibility.
Quotes From Moll Flanders
Here are important quotes from Moll Flanders.
But now, being an old married woman, I made no scruple of going directly home with him, and there I took possession at once of a house well furnished, and a husband in very good circumstances, so that I had a prospect of a very happy life, if I knew how to manage it; and I had leisure to consider of the real value of the life I was likely to live."
At the end of the novel, Moll is an old woman reflecting on all the crimes she had committed over her lifetime. She also finally begins to value the things she has in life such as a husband, a well-furnished home, and comfortable circumstances. It provides the overall message that one should value what they have in life and be morally good.
Then he walked about the room, and taking me by the hand, I walked with him; and by and by, taking his advantage, he threw me down upon the bed, and kissed me there most violently; but, to give him his due, offered no manner of rudeness to me, only kissed a great while."
Sex outside of marriage was considered a grave sin in the 17th and 18th centuries and reserved for "whores" and prostitutes who were already at the lowest rung on the societal scale. Moll knows this and even calls sex a "rudeness".
Thus I convinced her, that if the men made their advantage of our sex in the affair of marriage, upon the supposition of there being such choice to be had, and of the women being so easy, it was only owing to this, that the women wanted courage to maintain their ground and to play their part."
Here Moll reasons that if men are allowed to have advantageous marriages, why should women not seek advantageous marriages as well? Moll marries strategically to get out of poverty, and she believes her actions are justified. This speaks to the theme of gender roles: women and society.
Moll Flanders - Key takeaways
- Moll Flanders is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722 and is based on the real-life criminal Moll King.
- The novel follows the story of Moll who is born into poor circumstances. To climb out of poverty, she will do whatever it takes including thieving, prostitution, bigamy, and even accidental incest.
- Moll Flanders is a picaresque novel and is told from Moll's point of view.
- Most of the novel revolves around Moll's crimes and her thoughts and does not provide detailed descriptions of the setting or other characters.
- Moll Flanders contains themes such as gender roles: women and society, money, and morality and criminality.
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