Moll Flanders

From the beginning, Moll Flanders is in control of the narrative in terms of how her character and circumstances are relayed. She makes it clear that she wants to “conceal her true name” (28): this signals to the reader that the account to follow will be scandalous, at least in the context of the age. It also references the fact that, as “The Preface” admits, there is an authority behind the account of Moll Flanders. An unnamed author has assisted Moll in organizing and sanitizing her thoughts. As the author puts it, “she is made to tell her own tale in modester words than she told it at first” (28). He hints that her language is coarse because of her lower-class origins, particularly her time in Newgate prison. Thus, though the author grants Moll agency, he usurps her voice, at least in part. The reader hears her story through the lens of an allegedly more authoritative voice. Nevertheless, the author also elevates Moll over all of the other characters. Though a few characters are named, briefly, most characters are not given proper names at all. Moll controls the narrative through her point of view.

However, from the beginning, it is also clear that Moll is not always a reliable narrator of her own story. Sometimes this is due to naivete. When her nursemaid questions her about her aspirations to become a gentlewoman, Moll replies that she knows of a local woman who mends garments and does the wash for other women: “‘she,’ says I, ‘is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam’” (38). What Moll does not understand, as a young girl, is that the woman is a madam in the sense that she takes care of sex workers. Thus, the novel introduces the conflation of being a gentlewoman with being a sex worker. This moment also foreshadows Moll’s own journey, wherein she becomes educated in the house of a gentlewoman and corrupted by her eldest son. Seduced by Robert, and convinced that he will marry her, she enters into a sexual relationship with him and accepts monetary favors from him. The way Moll unwittingly enters sex work through a combination of the promise of marriage and the exigency of her poverty introduces the theme of The Interplay of Circumstance, Opportunity, and Morality. Moll engages in activities that are considered morally compromising by her society, but at this point, she does them because of her unique circumstances: a young woman in a wealthy household, dependent on the favor of the family for security.

Moll is also an unreliable narrator in the sense that she believes so wholly in her own abilities, intelligence, and good sense that she often exaggerates events. For example, when she talks about her brief time with the Roma, she believes that she was the one who possessed the agency to leave them, though she would not have been much more than a toddler at the time. As she explains, “I have a notion in my head that I left them there (that is, that I hid myself and would not go any further with them)” (34). Not only does this bolster her sense of her own capabilities, but it also reveals an underlying prejudice: Moll fears staying with an ostracized ethnic group due to her internalized racial and class prejudices: she says that she would have her “skin discoloured or blackened” and thus would lose the chance to become a gentlewoman (34). She is also confident in her ability to manipulate situations to her advantage. She learns that when she does not wish to go into service, her tantrums—and her beauty—keep her from it. She does a nice curtsy in front of the mayor’s wife and therefore gains a benefactress. As she grows older, and her beauty more prominent, she is able to secure lodging in a lady’s household. Once again, Moll’s response to her circumstances makes the morality of her behavior ambiguous. On the one hand, she uses her looks to manipulate the mayor’s wife into giving her what she wants; on the other hand, she is a child who has no parents or resources to protect her, so she feels she must grasp any opportunity she can.

Her beauty, however, feeds her vanity and becomes a liability as much as an asset. It attracts the attention of the eldest son, Robert, and he seduces her with no intention of making her his wife, notwithstanding his empty promises of marrying upon inheriting the family estate. Instead, he gives her money for her sexual favors, manipulating her into what is essentially sex work without her awareness or consent. This “ruins” her socially and forces her to reject the honorable proposal of Robert’s younger brother, Robin. Still, after some manipulation of the family to gain their approval, Moll is compelled to reconsider. This situation introduces the theme of Marriage as a Capitalist Imperative, particularly for women. Moll knows that she needs financial security, and her only available route to financial security is marriage to Robin. She finally realizes the hard truth: “I began to see the danger that I was in, which I had not considered of before, and that was, of being dropped by both of them and left in the world to shift for myself” (75). Thus, she acquiesces out of necessity, though she claims that she is racked by guilt during the entire marriage.

Moll is manipulative and dishonest, as well as consumed with self-interest—and yet, she is a likable character. She is resourceful, determined, and resilient, not to mention quite charismatic. A big part of this is The Interplay of Circumstance, Opportunity, and Morality: Moll is formed by her circumstances, not just her character, and the fear of abject poverty is a powerful motivator, inviting empathy for even her most questionable actions. The author himself seems both to support and to suspect this motivation. On the one hand, he polishes and publishes her story, dissolute details and all. On the other hand, he works diligently in “The Preface” “to justify the publication of it” (31). To that end, he has brought to life a complex, magnetic, and duplicitous protagonist.