Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Moll Flanders, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Poverty and Morality
Gender and Society
Identity
Sex and Money
Summary
Analysis
It may be difficult, Defoe says, for readers to take the following pages as genuine when names and circumstances are concealed; however, readers must pass their own opinion on the following story. The author, Moll Flanders, is writing her story, and she will detail early on why she must conceal her identity. Defoe admits that the story was rewritten, and Moll was made to tell her story more delicately than she did at first. The first copy of Moll’s story was written in the language of Newgate Prison, not as a remorseful woman, as she claims to be.
Moll isn’t who she says she is, and her concealed identity immediately makes her story appear mysterious. Since Moll originally wrote her story in the language of Newgate Prison (London’s main prison for over 700 years), the reader can infer that she is some kind of criminal. This passage also suggests that Moll isn’t really remorseful for whatever it is she has done, a question that will come up over and over again throughout the novel.
Themes
Literary Devices
For the one finishing Moll’s story, it was difficult to “put it into a Dress fit to be seen.” Moll is a woman depraved from her youth and is the very “Off-spring of Debauchery and Vice,” but great care has been taken to avoid giving readers any “lewd Ideas.” It is recommended that only those who will make good use of the story read it, and such readers are likely to find they are more pleased with the moral than the actual story. As “the Advocates for the Stage have in all Ages made this great Argument,” Defoe maintains, there is something to be learned from wicked stories. As such, there is something to be learned from every part of Moll’s story—if the reader wishes to make use of it.
Defoe’s claim that Moll’s story must be “put into a Dress fit to be seen” reflects the sexism that pervades most of the book. Society expects women to be pictures of modesty and virtue, and Moll’s story—and by extension Moll herself—must be modified to fit that ideal; that is, they must be dressed up in order to become acceptable to polite society. Moll’s identity as one of “Debauchery and Vice” and the “lewd Ideas” Defoe mentions suggest Moll’s story is one of sex and sin. In the 15th and 16th centuries, theaters and plays were often considered dangerous examples of vice that influenced people to sin. Those who supported the theater, however, maintained that plays were valuable examples of what not to do. Defoe suggests the same thing here and offers Moll’s story for moral instruction, not entertainment.
Themes
