Moll Flanders

By today's standards Moll Flanders fits the criteria for feminist novelt. It ranks up there with the likes of Tess of the D'urbervilles and Jane Eyre for strong, female leading characters, yet the term that Virginia Woolf uses would not have been applied to the novel in 1722.

I do believe that the novel was meant to do exactly what Defoe claims but whether or not he intended, it went much further. Defoe seems hell-bent on convincing the reader that the sotry is a lesson in morality. He writes that he has "shortn'd" and even completely left out certain parts to "give no leud Ideas, no immodest Turns" (4). Language like this begets the question then, if Defoe meant his work only to serve as an example of the dangers of a "Woman debauch'd from her Youth" (3) why then does he portray Moll as such a strond, independent woman?
Another interesting thing to note is that Defoe draws attention to the plight of women. He writes about how if women would only hold themselves with confidence and view themselves as equals, they could become so. We see this when Moll advises her friend that she has every right to inquire into a suiter's circumstances. Women should not feel they need to blindly accept any offer of marriage that comes along. They only contribute to their problem when they allow themselves to only fear becoming an old maid. At least these are the points that Defoe lays out throught his character.

Perhaps Defoe is utilizing the same artiface as Shakespeare by putting revolutionary ides of gender quality into a character that he has gone to great lengths to paint as both trustworthy and immoral.