In an example of situational irony, when Moll marries the Plantation Owner, she is not aware of the fact that he is her half-brother. It is only after she has moved to Virginia to build a family with him and listens to his mother tell her life-story that she realizes her mother-in-law is also her mother:
I heard this part of the Story with very little attention, because I wanted much to retire and give vent to my Passions, which I did soon after; and let any one judge what must be the Anguish of my Mind, when I came to reflect that this was certainly no more or less than my own Mother, and I had now had two Children, and was big with another by my own Brother, and lay with him still every Night.
This passage effectively captures the painful irony of the situation, as Moll describes the “Anguish of [her] mind” upon realizing her mother-in-law was “no more or no less than [her] own Mother” and that this meant Moll had children with her own brother.
Despite the enormity of this revelation, Moll ends up deciding not to tell her mother or husband the truth for two more years. This is because she knows that her husband will end their marriage and she will once again be left without any financial stability. In order to keep herself safe, she is forced to compromise her morals.
When Moll and James get married, they each believe the other to be wealthy when, in fact, they are both broke—an example of situational irony. Moll’s description of the moment in which they realize the truth about each other effectively captures the irony of this “double fraud”:
I was confounded now as much as he, and knew not what to say: I thought many ways that I had the worst of it, but his saying he was undone, and that he had no Estate neither, put me into a meer distraction; why, says I to him, this has been a hellish Juggle, for we are married here upon the foot of a double Fraud; you are undone by the Disappointment it seems, and if I had had a Fortune I had been cheated too, for you say you have nothing.
Here Moll highlights the absurd and ironic situation they are in—James is “undone by Disappointment” because he believed Moll to have access to a fortune, and Moll is upset because James has “nothing.” What’s more, Moll notes, if she did have access to wealth, she still would have been upset that James lied to her about his own financial situation.
It is notable that Moll and James end up parting ways amicably after this—neither of them begrudges the other for their lack of funds or deception. This is because they both know that sometimes one has to act immorally to gain access to financial stability.
Another layer of irony in Moll and James’s story is that, though they part ways, they ultimately end up together. Despite the fact that their relationship was built on lies and hidden truths, they decide to trust each other once more.
In an example of situational irony, Moll—who has been impoverished almost her whole life and faced a seemingly endless barrage of challenges and disadvantages—ends up wealthy, happily married, and content. While readers expect her story to end with misery and disgrace, it is quite the opposite, as Moll describes at the end of the novel:
Thus all these little Difficulties were made easy, and we liv’d together with the greatest Kindness and Comfort imaginable; we are now grown Old: I am come back to England, being almost seventy Years of Age, my Husband sixty eight, having perform’d much more than the limited Terms of my Transportation: And now notwithstanding all the Fatigues, and all the Miseries we have both gone thro’, we are both in good Heart and Health.
Defoe’s decision to end the book with this ironic twist has been the topic of literary discussions for many years. While some believe Defoe was attempting to show how people who repent for their sins and criminal actions are rewarded for said penitence, others believe he was communicating that morality has nothing to do with where someone ultimately ends up. In other words, that Moll and James end the novel satisfied and financially stable could have nothing to do with whether they deserved it or not, but with the fact that they were savvy enough to finally find stability.
