At its core, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders serves as a sort of cautionary tale and moral guidebook for readers. Protagonist Moll Flanders lives, for the most part, a life of crime. Moll is a thief and a prostitute, and when she isn’t actively breaking the law, she is lying and deceiving nearly everyone she meets. She is married five times, has an incestuous relationship with her brother, and gives birth to several children, all of whom she abandons. Moll is born in London’s Newgate Prison to a convict mother, and it seems as if she is destined to follow in her mother’s criminal footsteps; however, this doesn’t mean that Moll doesn’t struggle with her morality. Each time she breaks the law or is otherwise dishonest, she feels appropriately guilty—at least until she breaks the law or lies again. As a member of the lower class, Moll has few opportunities or choices in life, and she is often forced to break the law or resort to dishonest means to survive. Defoe draws a direct parallel between crime and poverty in Moll Flanders and ultimately argues that morality, like many things, is a luxury that the lower class often cannot afford.
Whenever Moll behaves in an immoral way, she is quick to point out her own sins and express her guilt, which suggests Moll is often acting against her true moral compass. When Moll is young, she falls in love with the older brother, the son of the wealthy lady who takes Moll in, and they have a longstanding affair. He initially promises to marry her but later refuses to do so, and Moll is forced to marry his younger brother or be put out on the street. Moll never loves her husband, and she constantly thinks about his brother. “In short, I committed Adultery and Incest with him every Day in my Desires,” Moll admits, “which without doubt, was as effectually Criminal in the Nature of the Guilt, as if I had actually done it.” In this case, it is only Moll’s thoughts that are immoral, but she still feels guilty. When Moll marries her third husband, she later discovers that he is also her half-brother; however, she lives with this secret for two whole years, because she has nowhere else to go. “I liv’d therefore in open avowed Incest and Whoredom, and all under the appearance of an honest Wife,” Moll says, “and made my Husband, as he thought himself even nauseous to me.” Moll knows her marriage is wrong, and it makes her sick to her stomach, but again, she can’t do much to change the situation. After Moll’s fourth husband, James, leaves Moll alone and pregnant, she is forced to “Lye-Inn”—women of Moll’s time where expected to completely remove themselves from society during pregnancy—at a brothel. “This was a strange Testimony of the growing Vice of the Age, and such a one, that as bad as I had been my self, it shock’d my very Senses, I began to nauceate the place I was in, and above all, the wicked Practice,” says Moll. Again, Moll is forced into an immoral situation that makes her makes her sick to her stomach.
Moll repeatedly reminds the reader of her poverty and implies that she wouldn’t break the law or behave dishonestly if she had more money and opportunity. As Moll embarks on her life of crime, she begs the reader not to continue reading “without seriously reflecting on the Circumstances of a desolate State” and to remember “the wise Man’s Prayer, Give me not Poverty lest I Steal.” Moll doesn’t break the law and live an immoral life because she is an inherently immoral woman; rather, she breaks the law and lives an immoral life because she has few choices and little opportunity to do anything else. Moll admits that she regrets many of her immoral decisions. Her choices, however, are made with immorality on one hand and “the terrible prospect of Poverty and Starving” on the other. “But as Poverty brought me into it,” Moll says of her immoral choices, “so fear of Poverty kept me in it.” Moll’s choice is clear, and she must resort to crime and dishonesty in order to survive. Moll explains that there are certain temptations that people are powerless to resist. “As Covetousness is the Root of all Evil,” Moll says, “so Poverty is, I believe, the worst of all Snares.” Moll is caught in a trap of poverty, and Defoe explicitly states that the only way for her to get out is by stealing and other dishonest means.
By the end of the novel, Moll is living comfortably with her ex-husband, James—who is also a reformed criminal—and they spend the rest of their days “in sincere Penitence” for their “wicked Lives.” Moll’s atonement may be genuine, but it is likely she would return to her life of crime and dishonesty if not for her newfound wealth. For Moll, “Vice [comes] in always at the Door of Necessity, not at the Door of Inclination.” It is poverty and limited opportunities that lead Moll to a life of crime, not a lack of moral fiber.
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Poverty and Morality Quotes in Moll Flanders
It is true, that the original of this Story is put into new Words, and the Stile of the famous Lady we here speak of is a little alter’d, particularly she is made to tell her own Tale in modester Words than she told it at first; the Copy which came first to Hand, having been written in Language more like one still in Newgate, than one grown Penitent and Humble, as she afterwards pretends to be.
The Pen employ’d in finishing her Story, and making it what you now see it to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a Dress fit to be seen, and to make it speak Language fit to be read: When a Woman debauch’d from her Youth, nay, even being the Off-spring of Debauchery and Vice, comes to give an Account of all her vicious Practises, and even to descend to the particular Occasions and Circumstances by which she first became wicked, and of all the progression of Crime which she run through in threescore Year, an Author must be hard put to it to wrap it up so clean, as not to give room, especially for vicious Readers to turn it to his Disadvantage.
The Advocates for the Stage have in all Ages made this the great Argument to persuade People that their Plays are useful, and that they ought to be allow’d in the most civiliz’d, and in the most religious Government; Namely, That they are applyed to virtuous Purposes, and that by the most lively Representations, they fail not to recommend Virtue and generous Principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts of Vice and Corruption of Manners; and were it true that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that Rule, as the Test of their acting on the Theatre, much might be said in their Favour.
My True Name is so well known in the Records, or Registers at Newgate, and in the Old-Baily, and there are some things of such Consequence still depending there, relating to my particular Conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my Name, or the Account of my Family to this Work; perhaps, after my Death it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, no, not tho’ a general Pardon should be issued, even without Exceptions and reserve of Persons or Crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst Comrades, who are out of the Way of doing me Harm, having gone out of the World by the Steps and the String, as I often expected to go, knew me by the Name of Moll Flanders; so you may give me leave to speak of myself under that Name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
Had this been the Custom in our Country, I had not been left a poor desolate Girl without Friends, without Cloaths, without Help or Helper in the World, as was my Fate; and by which, I was not only expos’d to very great Distresses, even before I was capable either of Understanding my Case, or how to Amend it, nor brought into a Course of Life, which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary Course, tended to the swift Destruction both of Soul and Body.
This was evidently my Case, for I was now a loose unguided Creature, and had no Help, no Assistance, no Guide for my Conduct: I knew what I aim’d at, and what I wanted, but knew nothing how to pursue the End by direct means; I wanted to be plac’d in a settled State of Living, and had I happen’d to meet with a sober good Husband, I should have been as faithful and true a Wife to him as Virtue it self could have form’d: If I had been otherwise, the Vice came in always at the Door of Necessity, not at the Door of Inclination […].
O let none read this part without seriously reflecting on the Circumstances of a desolate State, and how they would grapple with meer want of Friends and want of Bread; it will certainly make them think not of sparing what they have only, but of looking up to Heaven for support, and of the wise Man’s Prayer, Give me not Poverty lest I Steal.
Thus you see having committed a Crime once, is a sad Handle to the committing of it again; whereas all the Regret, and Reflections wear off when the Temptation renews it self; had I not yielded to see him again, the Corrupt desire in him had worn off, and ’tis very probable he had never fallen into it, with any Body else, as I really believe he had not done before.
On the other hand, 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, for ’tis very seldom that some Snare or other is not in their way. 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.
This may be thought inconsistent in it self, and wide from the Business of this Book; Particularly, I reflect that many of those who may be pleas’d and diverted with the Relation of the wild and wicked part of my Story, may not relish this, which is really the best part of my Life, the most Advantageous to myself, and the most instructive to others; such however will I hope allow me the liberty to make my Story compleat: It would be a severe Satyr on such, to say they do not relish the Repentance as much as they do the Crime; and that they had rather the History were a compleat Tragedy, as it was very likely to have been.
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; my Husband remain’d there sometime after me to settle our Affairs, and at first I had intended to go back to him, but at his desire I alter’d that Resolution, and he is come over to England also, where we resolve to spend the Remainder of our Years in sincere Penitence, for the wicked Lives we have lived.
