Social Criticism in Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe is overt in his critique of society in Moll Flanders, a book that is quite self-conscious about the learning experiences of his protagonist and about the social forces shaping her and those she meets. The novel embodies the economic and social problems in Britain in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Moll herself dramatizes the particular difficulties of women, but she is not alone in finding it difficult in making a living. Of her numerous husbands, one goes broke, another loses the money he loaned dying in despair, and yet another has to leave the country.

The novel begins in Essex, but most of the story takes place in the City of London. Essex is a region of rich farmland, but for Defoe, London was the great city in England and the place he loved. At the same time, London offered anonymity to the individual while also creating the loneliness, alienation, and individuality that are so important to Defoe's themes.

This is a novel that is intended to teach a moral lesson, and the nature of the main character as a "fallen woman" suggests that the reader is to be morally informed by the mistakes Moll makes. This is evident in the preface, written by a supposed editor of Moll's story:

The pen employed in finishing her story, and making it what you now see it to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a dress fit to be seen, and to make it speak language fit to be read. When a woman debauched from her youth, nay, even being the offspr

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lace; His time a moment, and a point his space (I.69-72). Yet, though man knows his place in the universe, he also wants to change it, to be what he is not, to take on other characteristics and powers: What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears (I.172-175). Defoe has an ambiguous view of people like Moll Flanders. It is evident that he admires her for her fortitude and capability, but he also raises questions about how she is able to move so freely across the social landscape and whether this is harmful to society as a whole. Moll represents human nature in a distorted way. Pope describes human nature as follows: Two principles in human nature reign; Selflove, to urge, and reason, to restrain (II.54-55). Moll is certainly motivated by self-love, but reason does not restrain her actions when she wants something. Of course, Defoe himself is contrary on how he feels about this, for there is irony even in the way the moral lesson is presented. As Defoe states in his Preface (noting that to show repentance, it is nec

Category: Literature - S