The tone of Moll Flanders shifts between matter-of-fact and remorseful. There are times when the narrator Moll recounts without any negative emotions (and occasionally even with pride) her various crimes and scams, and other moments in which she gets very emotional and makes it clear to readers that she regrets all of these immoral acts.
The following passage shows Moll describing without concern how she robbed a man who fell asleep after they had sex:
I took this opportunity to search him to a Nicety; I took a gold Watch, with a silk Purse of Gold, his fine full bottom Perrewig, and silver fring’d Gloves, his Sword, and fine Snuff-box, and gently opening the Coach-door, stood ready to jump out while the Coach was going on; but the Coach stopping in the narrow Street beyond Temple-Bar to let another Coach pass, I got softly out, fasten’d the Door again, and gave my Gentleman and the Coach the slip both together.
Here Moll describes a troubling scene without any regret—she simply lists all that she stole from the man and details how she “gently open[ed]” the door of the train and “got softly out,” giving the man “the slip.” The tone here does not suggest any regret about her actions.
Compare the language here to a moment near the end of the novel, when Moll asks readers to learn from her experiences as a “wicked” creature:
Every Branch of my Story, if duly consider’d, may be useful to honest People, and afford a due Caution to People of some sort or other to Guard against the like Surprizes, and to have their Eyes about them when they have to do with Strangers of any kind […] The Moral indeed of all my History is left to be gather’d by the Senses and Judgment of the Reader; I am not Qualified to preach to them, let the Experience of one Creature compleatly Wicked, and compleatly Miserable be a Storehouse of useful warning to those that read.
Here Moll frames “Every Branch of [her] Story” as a “Caution to People” and a “warning to those that read,” calling herself a “Creature compleatly wicked.” This is a very different tone from what readers have seen previously. Moll is clearly looking for sympathy here rather than sharing her story in a matter-of-fact way.
These shifts in tone show readers that, as a character, Moll’s identity isn’t entirely knowable. The same way that her name shifts over the course of the story, she becomes whoever she needs to be to survive. In her more penitent moments she could either be telling the truth or trying to con readers—Defoe intentionally keeps it ambiguous which one is the case.
The tone of Moll Flanders shifts between matter-of-fact and remorseful. There are times when the narrator Moll recounts without any negative emotions (and occasionally even with pride) her various crimes and scams, and other moments in which she gets very emotional and makes it clear to readers that she regrets all of these immoral acts.
The following passage shows Moll describing without concern how she robbed a man who fell asleep after they had sex:
I took this opportunity to search him to a Nicety; I took a gold Watch, with a silk Purse of Gold, his fine full bottom Perrewig, and silver fring’d Gloves, his Sword, and fine Snuff-box, and gently opening the Coach-door, stood ready to jump out while the Coach was going on; but the Coach stopping in the narrow Street beyond Temple-Bar to let another Coach pass, I got softly out, fasten’d the Door again, and gave my Gentleman and the Coach the slip both together.
Here Moll describes a troubling scene without any regret—she simply lists all that she stole from the man and details how she “gently open[ed]” the door of the train and “got softly out,” giving the man “the slip.” The tone here does not suggest any regret about her actions.
Compare the language here to a moment near the end of the novel, when Moll asks readers to learn from her experiences as a “wicked” creature:
Every Branch of my Story, if duly consider’d, may be useful to honest People, and afford a due Caution to People of some sort or other to Guard against the like Surprizes, and to have their Eyes about them when they have to do with Strangers of any kind […] The Moral indeed of all my History is left to be gather’d by the Senses and Judgment of the Reader; I am not Qualified to preach to them, let the Experience of one Creature compleatly Wicked, and compleatly Miserable be a Storehouse of useful warning to those that read.
Here Moll frames “Every Branch of [her] Story” as a “Caution to People” and a “warning to those that read,” calling herself a “Creature compleatly wicked.” This is a very different tone from what readers have seen previously. Moll is clearly looking for sympathy here rather than sharing her story in a matter-of-fact way.
These shifts in tone show readers that, as a character, Moll’s identity isn’t entirely knowable. The same way that her name shifts over the course of the story, she becomes whoever she needs to be to survive. In her more penitent moments she could either be telling the truth or trying to con readers—Defoe intentionally keeps it ambiguous which one is the case.
