English 2610

I think that many of Moll's actions throughout the story can be attributed to society, although not all. Society has an effect on us all in some way or another, whether we choose to embrace those standards believed to be proper or blatantly disregard them. We are all molded at a young age by our environments and I believe that Moll's experience with the elder brother was something that stayed with her. That is why she chose to marry out of necessity, which I think is one of Defoe's points, since we know what he thought of marriage.

I also wanted to comment that the fact that Defoe did so much research showed. This is not only because of the descriptions of Newgate, Virginia, the boat and so on, but because he even made Moll's character research. The first instance I noticed this was when she was at the mall and inquired of the footman who the well-dressed ladies were. She was able to then use that information to deceive the girls into trusting her.

Maybe this is the hopeless romantic deep inside me, but I loved that Moll ended up with her Lancanshire husband in the end! After she saw him at Dunstable, I kept expecting to see him appear in the story somehow. Defoe was able to keep me in suspense with my desire to know what happened to this character after the robbery. Once Moll landed in jail, I expected him to appear again and I was very pleased when he did.

This is my first about Moll Flanders, but I absolutely loved the whole book. The only thing that made it hard for me to get through it was the way it was structured. I had to pay a little closer attention to figure out who was saying what in conversations. I loved Moll to death, but . . . ;) the one thing I didn't like about her was her deceitful nature. This is in fact because I have been shaped by one of my past relationships to hate lies and am myself almost honest to a fault.