Moll Flanders
• Group Members:
• Tami Villa
• Winni Choe
Moll Flanders
• Written in 1722
by Daniel Defoe
• Picaresque
• Morality Tale
Literary significance and criticism
• As a picaresque, Moll is a lower class
character who travels among the wealthy and
exposes their vanity and shallowness.
• As a morality tale the novel can be read two
different ways. On the one hand, the story of
Moll could be classically tragic
• As a woman whose crime is self-reliance and
lack of Christian obedience
Daniel Defoe
• Born 1660
• Died 1731
• Also wrote Robinson
Crusoe
• Founder of the
English Novel
• Wrote over 500
books, pamphlets,
journals, poems.
Main Characters
•
•
•
•
•
Moll Flanders
Moll’s Nurse
Moll’s first lover
Moll’s first husband
Moll’s second
husband
• Moll’s brother and
third husband
• Moll’s second lover
• Moll’s fourth
husband
• Moll’s fifth husband
• Moll’s Governess
• Moll’s son and
nephew, Humphrey
Plot of Moll Flanders
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Childhood
1st Lover
1st Husband
2nd Husband
3rd Husband
4th Husband
The Governess and the Banker
Criminal and Prisoner
America and England
Childhood
• Mother in Newgate jail; pled her belly;
gave birth to Moll; transported to
America.
• Raised by Gypsies, and a foster mother.
• Considered herself a Gentlewoman
Sewed and mended to support herself.
• Left on her own when she was 15.
1st Lover
• She became a ladies maid to a family
with three girls and two sons;
• The oldest son became her lover & paid
her for her ‘services’;
• Moll is jilted by her lover & given a final
‘payment’;
1st Husband
• Moll finds out her lover’s brother wishes
to marry her;
• The youngest son became her first
husband;
• Moll marries for the first time & has two
children before her husband dies;
2nd Husband
•
•
•
•
Draper
Acts like a Gentleman
Spends all Moll’s money
Runs from debt collectors and abandons
Moll to face the bill collectors
• Ends up hiding in France
3rd Husband
•
•
•
•
Owner of a Plantation in Virginia
They have three children together
Discovers he is actually her half brother
Returns to England to try yet again for a
new life
4th Husband
• Banker
• He divorces his current wife to marry
Moll
• They live happily for a few short years
until his death
5th Husband
• James, her ‘Lancashire’ husband
• They marry, after having tricked the
other into thinking he/she was a
wealthy gentleman/lady
• They separate and go their separate
ways in crime; meet again in prison;
begin a new life together in America
The Governess
• Moll’s landlady and midwife while she is
married to the Banker.
• Initiates Moll into the criminal world of
London.
Themes in Moll Flanders
• Capitalism
•
Video Clips
• Morality
•
Video Clips