Moll Flanders [Mass Market Paperback]

Moll did not start out as an unregenerate guttersnipe. At the book's start, Defoe is careful to portray her as the innocent lamb cast adrift in a sea of unscrupulous men. The world of Moll Flanders, the England of the 17th century, was not one designed to harbor any illusions that innocence could long remain that way in the face of ubiquitous lechery and poverty. Moll is seduced, then abandoned, and at the ripe age of 16,must fend for herself. The only coin that she retains to provide herself with the necessities of life is the one that she sits on.

MOLL FLANDERS is unique among fallen from virtue women tales in its structure and incessant theme that to survive in an immoral world, one must be more immoral than everyone else. The novel itself is not divided into chapters. It is simply one very long series of vignettes, extending over many years, that portray Moll as the most infamous flat character in English literature. Moll's story can be summarized thusly: Moll steals, Moll eludes the law, Moll has innumerable (and unnamed) children, Moll commits incest (unknowingly) with her brother, Moll gets caught and is imprisoned. Throughout all of this, Moll changes not a whit. Her primary defense against a very nearly nonexistent conscience is her powerful sense of rationalization. One day, she sees a young child with some valuables hanging about his clothes. She pickpockets them, telling herself that the loss of these trifles ought to alert his parents that they could just have easily has suffered the loss of that child. Moll glides through life, usually coming out on top. As she gains reknown for her ill-deeds, she takes the time to compare her lot with those other poverty-stricken women who chose a life of virtue over crime. Moll cackles at their foolishness. The only time in the novel that she shows any remorse occurs when she is finally caught. At Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND, 'You are not sorry you committed wrong, but you are very sorry you got caught.'

The question that modern readers have to grapple with is the intent of Daniel Defoe in presenting a woman whom today we would call a whore-grifter. Despite the tight focus on Moll, all that we learn of her after 300 pages of whoring is that she enjoyed her life with a gusto and cared not a fig about the consequences to her or to anyone else. Morality, Defoe seems to imply, is infinitely elastic, and its ultimate use is to justify the taking of material objects that rightfully belong to others. Moll, then, is the ancestor of Madonna's 'Material Girl,' one who blithely assumes that the bill for immorality need never be paid. Perhaps Defoe's inner lesson about Moll is that this elasticity of morality does result in an inevitable, if unwanted, payoff after all.

The best punch is about three quarters of the way through the book when she is starting to get on in years and is trying to better her position through marriage. He, through her, chastises women who put too little value on themselves. He/She spells out certain rules to gain control in relationships with men and how to best watch for your own interests. It struck me that this would be useful information for a young girl to read today (or any unmarried woman for that matter).

If you are concerned about giving a book to a young girl that contains premarital sex, theft and a score of other things you wouldn't want her to do - don't be. DeFoe presents the memoirs as a warning, a parable if you will, and Ms. Flanders is always repentent. This is standard DeFoe style - and a wonderful story.