Timeless

Virginia Woolf and I have not always been on the best of terms. A couple semesters ago our class read "Mrs. Dalloway" .The first part of the novel gave me the need to eat a box of Ding Dongs and a carton of Mint Madness. Don't get me wrong, I think Woolf is one of the most wise and articulate writers out there, it was just that she gave me too much to think about. Subjects that in my view were too complicated, by the end of the novel I had done a lot of repenting and knew the Woolf was ahead of her time. I don't think they could have chosen a better person to write the preface to Moll Flanders, besides Defoe himself. Woolf is able to elaborate on the difficulties and contradictions that women have to face, because like Moll Flanders, Woolf walked the road of cause and effect many times . I think Defoe would have encouraged Woolf and her views of his writings, just as I believe he would be pleased with our class discussions about Flanders.

A novel becomes a timeless classic, because it can fit any time era. For Defoe's era there was a need to address morality. For Woolf's era a need to address feminism, and for our era maybe we need to address the reasons we feel the craving to cast judgements upon others. The great thing about the novel of Moll Flanders is its ability to adapt to the given situation, much like its heroine.