Moll Flanders: A Norton Critical Edition

Though inevitably overshadowed by his immortal Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders is another excellent, important, and influential Daniel Defoe novel. Anyone who has not read Crusoe should of course do so first, but its fans are encouraged to continue here, as Moll has many of the same virtues. Crusoe has long been called the first real Western novel, making Moll, which came out a few years later, an early entry. Like Crusoe, it can be highly enjoyed and appreciated simply as a rollicking adventure. It is nearly as entertaining, drawing us in quickly and never letting go through a remarkable series of plot twists continuing to the very end. The novel is fast-paced and intriguing, and its sheer readability is very noteworthy. It reads almost as well as ever despite archaic spellings and punctuation. Unlike nearly all classics, it need not be drastically edited, footnoted, and introduced for comprehension. This is hardly true of even many twentieth century works, much less one of such vintage. Even casual readers who have almost no experience with classics, to say nothing of ones three hundred years old, can pick it up with practically no trouble. The documentary style and clear, concise prose that made Crusoe so ground-breaking and absorbing are continued, but Moll is in many ways even more impressive because Crusoe had the easy draw of an exotic deserted island, while this is set in contemporary England and colonial America. The attractive element now comes from Defoe's focus on society's oft-overlooked underbelly, which he knew well from hard personal experience. We get a profoundly up-close look at the poor and downtrodden, including criminals, prisoners, indentured servants, and other laborers. Moll indeed focuses near-obsessively on the low and gritty, including prostitution and incest. This fascinated initial readers and continues to do so, helped by newly acquired historical value. The plot is highly improbable - far more so than Crusoe's in most ways -, but the stark realist tone and attention to everyday detail make it an invaluable record of early eighteenth century English and American life, including the dark side most never mention. The character of Moll is also of great importance and highly lifelike despite being written by a man. Though lacking almost all conventional virtues save beauty and at times seeming to positively revel in what the era would have called deadly sin, she remains sympathetic. This is mostly because, like Crusoe, she remains resolute and optimistic in extremely adverse circumstances; the eternal values of courage, determination, and perseverance are on strong display, making her - against all odds - in some ways conventionally admirable. More important from our perspective is Defoe's penetrating presentation of women's issues. Calling Moll a proto-feminist work would be too much, but Defoe shows a truly incredible knowledge of and sympathy for women's issues for a man born in the seventeenth century. He vividly

I think MOLL FLANDERS is my favorite novel of all time. The novel form was in its infancy at the time MOLL FLANDERS was written. In fact, Defoe is often called "the father of the English novel." Actually, as a novel it's very primitive. Defoe's fiction is usually a first person narrative told by an ambitious person, recounting how he got where he is today. In Moll Flanders, Defoe presents the autobiography of a woman who rises from an ignominious birth in Newgate Prison, and a childhood as a servant. Early on, Moll learns that she is beautiful and that she is attractive to the opposite sex. What's great about the book is its delicious irony. Oh there are times when she gets caught in her own traps, she's a sly one, that Moll. It's very difficult at times to think of Moll as a fictional character. But she is, in fact, the first great female character in English prose. I never cease to be amazed that the book was written by a man. There are moments in the book that I find very moving, like when she realizes that she's no longer pretty enough to attract men without resorting to makeup. "I never had to paint my face before." And of course there's that unsettling surprise she receives toward the end of the novel. This is a great and important book and hardly anyone has read it. I don't know why. I have recommended this book to probably a hundred people. To the best of my knowledge, not a single one of them has taken my advice. It's their loss. I LOVE Moll Flanders.

Obviously, this novel is about a prostitute. The writing accompanies this woman's journey without being dry or repetitive. I enjoyed it for it's inspection of femininity of the time as well as the clashing deviousness and classic redemption thrown together in the character of Moll Flanders.

Moll Flanders was written by Daniel Defoe, the same author of Robinson Crusoe. Although the settings are different, we can see many similarities between the stories, like the implicit criticism of british society of the XVII/XVIII centuries and the importance that society gave to exterior looks. Moll Flanders can be divided in two parts. In the first one, Moll, being poor, is raised in a foster home, and, being pretty, catches the attention of the elder son of the family whose house she lives in. It is when her misfortunes begin. Misled and deceived by this elder son, she has to leave the house and be on her own. When she was a child, she wanted to be a "dame of society", and that's what she desperately tries to become, looking for a rich man who will support her financialy. To catch the eyes of such men, she has to pretend she is very rich herself, and then all she manages to have are false "gentlemen", trying themselves to marry a rich woman. Even then, she is able to find a man she loves (more than one, in fact), but through a series of bad luck she always looses everything.The second part of the book is where Moll Flanders transforms herself in a successfull thieve. This is a fun part, where she describes her struggle to accomplish the thefts without being caught and thrown to infamous prison Newgate. And then, the ending seemed a little too sudden to me.Defoe's book is a stinging critic to his society, and that's why he chose to write in a female first-person, self centered (there are almost no other names in the course of the story) and desperate to get to the high level of society, showing that everybody could be affected by hypocrite puritanism and moralism.Grade 8.5/10

I had known of this book for years, but never picked it up because of what I thought that I knew about DeFoe's writing. The day I did, however, I was shocked to find a timely, vivid, and extremely compelling novel.