Disguising the Truth

It is very interesting to read both Virginia Woolf’s introduction and the actual novel and discover a lot of inherent contradictions in the characterization of Moll Flanders. As mentioned in the prompts, Virginia Woolf sees the character and story as an early feminist text about an unfortunate woman who must overcome obstacles of circumstance to achieve what she wants. However, in his preface Defoe clearly tries to couch his story as a morality/cautionary tale. Virginia Woolf herself comments on this seeming contradiction, “He takes pains to insist that he has not used his invention at all but has depended upon facts, and that his purpose has been the highly moral desire to convert the vicious or to warn the innocent”. I think the part of that sentence that stand out the most to me is that Virginia points out that he does in fact “take pains” to present the story as merely moral. It makes me wonder if his “pains” had more of a hidden purpose.

I would assume that when Moll Flanders was written there probably did not exist much of a feminist movement. Even if Defoe had wanted to describe his book as feminist would he have been able to do it? Would the book have been successful? I cannot help but think that Defoe knew the poor would not be reading his book at that time. Therefore, perhaps Defoe is purposefully lulling his perceived audience (the upper class) into thinking that they are reading a morality story that shows the dangers of the lower class trying to rise up and only falling into vice. One can almost imagine the aristocrat patting himself on the back while reading the book about vice and greed amongst the lower class. However, as has been noted in other posts and by Virginia Woolf, there really is no way you can read the book and not find admiration for Moll Flanders. She has drive, she has wits, and she is clever and exceedingly entertaining. Despite her struggles, it is fun to read about her using her particular talents to overcome them and you cannot help but root for her.

In essence, whether he realized it or not, I think that Defoe was in many ways disguising his novel as a mere morality story in an attempt to lull the reader into actually liking the character and, even if begrudgingly, admiring and appreciating her abilities in the circumstance. Perhaps astute readers of the time, in some way or other, changed the way they felt about and viewed the lower class as a result. I guess that in a lot of ways I see what Defoe is doing as very similar to Shakespeare introducing radical ideas about class distinction through the character Edmund.