What does Moll Flanders represent?

What does Moll Flanders represent?

The major recurrent theme in the novel is that of greed — a greed which leads Moll to prostitution, thievery, and moral disintegration. Moll sees people as commodities — her relationships with them as business transactions. Although she is in love with the eldest brother, she has few qualms about taking money from him.

What is the moral of Moll Flanders?

The moral lesson contained in Moll Flanders is that she is a virtuous example of the new paradigm of the individual that Defoe envisioned as being crucial to maintaining the growth of England that was promised by the emerging economic structure of the 18th century.

How does Defoe justify the actions of his heroine in Moll Flanders?

Defoe wrote Moll Flanders at a time when there was still little precedent for the novel as a genre, and he accordingly felt compelled to justify his book by presenting it as a true story. ... Her immoral actions have no real consequences, and the narrative tends to excuse her behavior by referring it to material necessity.

How is realism portrayed in Moll Flanders?

In his novel Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe portrays realism through a first person narrative. ... It is through her narrative that the reader really gets an impression of what life in eighteenth century England and the American colonies was like, both from the side of the rich and the poor.

What are the main themes in Moll Flanders?

Three recurring themes in Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe are greed, vanity, and repentance. Theme is defined as an underlying or essential subject of artistic representation. These three themes play an important role in the development of the story of Moll Flanders.

What features of a picaresque novel do you find in Moll Flanders?

Moll Flanders is considered an example of a picaresque novel. These novels usually employ a first-person narrator recounting the adventures of a scoundrel or low-class adventurer who moves from place to place and from one social environment to another in an effort to survive.

How are the issues of morality discussed in Moll Flanders?

At its core, Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders serves as a sort of cautionary tale and moral guidebook for readers. ... Defoe draws a direct parallel between crime and poverty in Moll Flanders and ultimately argues that morality, like many things, is a luxury that the lower class often cannot afford.

Does Moll develop or change as a character over the course of the novel?

Explanation: Moll is never really developed as a character, but she is a survivor, and her character is filled with energy and determination. She isn't "evil," but she is moral either.

Where does Moll's mother transported to upon her birth and why?

Moll tells us, in this personal history of her life, that after her birth, her mother was "transported to the plantations." Moll believes that she herself fell into bad hands and, until she was three years old, lived with gypsies from whom she then fled.

What is the purpose of the preface in Moll Flanders?

He encourages readers to learn more from the end of the story than from the events within it, and gives examples of the events Moll endures to support his idea.

What is the character analysis of Moll Flanders?

• Character Analysis Moll Flanders. Moll, the heroine of the book, was born in Newgate Prison and abandoned at about a year-and-a-half. She was a forceful, persistent, resolute young girl who obtained her way in most things. She was attractive and so vain about her appearance that she was easily convinced men were in love with her. Moll often...

What is the genre of the novel meetmoll Flanders?

• Moll Flanders follows the rogue adventures of a woman desperately seeking to improve her fortunes, and this makes it part of the picaresque novel trend of the 17th and 18th centuries, a genre that follows a rogue throughout their life. In the story, Moll's only legal options were to support herself in poverty or marry and be supported by a husband.

What kind of person is Moll?

• Moll, the heroine of the book, was born in Newgate Prison and abandoned at about a year-and-a-half. She was a forceful, persistent, resolute young girl who obtained her way in most things. She was attractive and so vain about her appearance that she was easily convinced men were in love with her.

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