A Woman from the Eighteenth Century in England

The whole story of Daniel Defoe with Moll Flanders is committed as long as he knows how to achieve the leading character, the riches, and the social position. Unmistakably Moll accomplishes her wants of being a woman of a gentlewoman, yet her character is continually changing all through the novel. She is influenced by each individual and experience she goes over addressing regardless of whether her way of life and choices were the correct ones, and frequently Defoe's skeptical depiction of his title character that speaks to a lady not quite the same as some other lady in the customary standards of eighteenth-century England.

The general idea, men ran everything on the grounds that they were viewed as better than women in existence. Women survived through their husbands and marriage was the main way of keeping any control in society.

In doing so, he makes the account of a questionable character that fights to see if society follows the traditional standards, or if women have created a life model to follow and live.

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Crampe-Casnabet clarifies that for the half of humanity, despite the fact of each record, people are no longer equivalent. She claims that “is, in fact, ambiguous because, oddly enough, it was not reciprocal: men were never said to constitute the other half of the species. A subtle sophism was at work: women were a “half” without an “other half.” The female half existed only in relation to the male half, which was its ground and defining reference” (317-318).

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Unexpectedly, Defoe collects Moll as a character with a traditional work of public in the public sphere. She sees herself better than anyone, and men look like women control at the capacity they want. In an effort to maintain cothe ntrol, marriage and social status, Moll is determined to control his situation in the eyes of the people and never neglects the prevalence of male domination.

The term subtle sophism of Crampe-Casnabet not only expressed the belief that it was difficult to deal with two parts equivalent to one another but also suggested an approach to depict Defoe in Moll's order. The imitation of a woman's present eye. Certainly, Defoe forces his character to share the narrative of a real woman. Maximillian Novak Claims Moll “was imaginatively constructed from several women criminals of the time, particularly two known by the names of Moll King and Calico Sarah. Since Defoe was visiting his friend, the publisher Mist, in Newgate at the same time these two ladies were there, he would have had numerous opportunities to converse with them.” Then Defoe may have used Moll to show another community of women in the public eye; A community that lives alone with its own methods of a knife that is dominant in life.

“Moll King managed to survive from five to eight sentences of transportation without being hanged, and if some critics have discovered in Moll Flander's life a mythic, symbolic sense of human endurance, they might well feel justified” (Novak 352). It is entirely conceivable for Defoe to use these two real lawbreakers to make his story. By this time, I trust that women take their regular habits and create a bigger character in Moll. This is a completely different character than what women would look like now. Moll is a mix of a smuggled lady injured in jail within weeks, in contradiction with the common standards of the ordinary woman. It is fascinating to see that a man, Defoe, is made up of a female character. This is where Crampe-Casnabet thinks he thinks of everything about a woman. Because there is a man in the public arena who is addressing a woman who completes a non-traditional job, readers can take a look at Moll's character and not praise, condemnation.

The language spoken in the whole of the novel proposes that Defoe write Moll's influence in the encounters governing his control over society, to influence the readers to choose the ideal. When you join the beginning of this book, it determines the tone of such a language. “Is suggested there cannot be the same life, the same brightness and beauty, in relating the penitent part, as in the criminal part: if because there is not the same taste and relish in the reading, and indeed it is too true that the difference lyes not in the real worth of the subject so much as in the gust and palate of the reader” (40).

Here, Defoe takes two extreme results as a reference. The relationship with his servant and his instruction make him a religious base for life. There are other account,terms that occasionally do not regret and swing to criminal controversies and activities. Each experience contributes to the conflict by seeing Moll's identity and what he can do in the final check. His control is what enables readers to see Moll's efforts to observe his life as a woman against traditional social standards. E.M. Forster in his article claims, “Whatever she does gives us(the reader)a slight shock—not the jolt of disillusionment, but the thrill that proceeds from a living being. We laugh at her, but without bitterness or superiority. She is neither hypocrite nor fool” (343).

This idea shows that Moll's character is responsible for herself. Despite the fact that they are conflicting with the standard, they are ready to act in a way that all readers can accept. Calling Moll, neither fraud nor a trick, shows Defoe's ability to play both sides. He is writing a novel about a woman who extends the limits of conflict with the standard; however, there are still parts in the content that it does not restrict in its control. Moll's power to the story and to different characters is ideally restricted from the opening lines when the novel does not give itself a real name. Moll's voice in the story shows the belief that women are equivalent to men; this was not the case between day and age. As with his life, Moll lives with his preferred behaviour. Then again, this is not usually being inhabited. Moll grew up with a close family. Her mother was a criminal and her father was never anonymous. At a time when his father's fate was taken away, Moll took to the throne. Her first genuine mother figure was the Nurse. She depicts their relationship by saying, “I talked to her almost every day of working hard; I did nothing but work and cry all day, which grieved the good kind woman so much, that at last, she began to be concerned for me, for she loved me very well' (48).

At the point where Moll suggests to the servant of a servant that he must finish off a respectable woman, the servant himself conflicts with the trial and ensures that he does so. The first run with Moll controls his own destiny. He can begin to manage young people as young as he can and begin to understand how to promote a woman. At the point where the character of the servant dies, Moll is now abandoned by the full control of his life. Although he was acquired by the Colchester family, he fully controls what he needs in his life. He makes the family's instructions better for this reality that he will soon begin. Their practice “was supposed to prepare [them] to assume her “natural” role as wife and mother” (Crampe-Casnabet 337). ). Defoe indicates Moll to regard the 'natural' job training played for ladies when Moll talks about the instruction she gets from both the Nurse e and the Mayor's family by saying:

I had, as I have said above, all the advantages of education that I could have had, if I had been as much a gentlewoman as they were, with whom I lived, and in some things, I had the advantage of my ladies, though they were my superiors; but they were all the gifts of nature, and which all their fortunes could not furnish. First, I was apparently handsome than any of them. Secondly, I was better shaped, and thirdly, I sang better, by which I mean, I had a better voice; in all which you will I hope to allow me to say, I do not speak my own conceit of myself but the opinion of all that knew the family (55).

It seems that Moll's instruction was only capable of respect and respect for other people. This is the idea that Crampe-Casnabet describes a woman's education during this time. Moll implies that he has an öne superior voice is and is more handsome than anybody, suggesting that his talents, which attract men's attention, are intact. It is the physical properties that encourage her because she is a better woman than the woman around her. Moll doesn't have the desire to be a wife or a mother. She marries constantly and is young, but you never feel intimately connected or connected. Control is calculated based on the safety and solidarity solids in Moll's life. She is continually searching for security and dependability in marriage however never performs ' her obligations as spouse, mother, and maid' which were conventional jobs of a woman in that time (Crampe-Casnabet 339).

This is evidenced by his first marriage to Robin. Moll tied his brother's money to his younger brother Robin. It can be said that Moll hired Robin in the light of the fact that his brother needed him. He has in relationship with his older brother, in reality, but his sex thoughts have nothing to do with the past. It makes Moll think about what marriage really is. At the point when past she makes it discovered that she thinks more about her money related status than her husband passing on when she says, “I had saved of the money he formerly gave me, and about as much more by my husband, left me a widow with about 1200 ₤. in my pocket” (Defoe 89). William Krier claims that this was only Moll's beginning, based on the novel's male character. Moll said that he hoped no one had the power to bring his power to the power of others (400). He recommends that Moll never withdraws from the intensity of the male figure; rather, it uses them to create an incentive that belongs to it in the public arena. This is identified with the discovery of safety to achieve significant increases.

For this case, Moll uses Robin to enter a higher class and the last winds become richer. Her husband died when she had money and was responsible for her influence, for letting her do. Jacques Sohier claims, “when she specializes in marriages or in being a mistress, she never loses sight of her security, of course, but also of her financial interest, and she always acts to preserve or if possible to enhance her stock”(9). A key term utilized here is 'security'. Moll constantly seeks security in his life, and in this period there are men holding this power. The main way for women to share this power is marriage. Moll, pursuing this assurance, was taken under control because he knew whether he had the security he hinted to possess control of. This can be regarded as a character that praises Moll's adaptation of how a woman is portrayed as far as the twentieth century, becoming responsible for the identity of women and irrespective of whether or not they are with them. There was no possibility of getting married by taking over the man who controlled the woman. Moll shows constantly that he didn't love for money, but for love.

She says “I had been tricked once by that cheat called LOVE, but the game was over, I was resolved now to be married, or nothing, and to well married, or not at all” (90). This line demonstrates Moll's point of view on marriage is dubious for that time. Crampe-Casnabet claims that “desires to please by the necessity of her nature, then she exists only through being looked at by men” (327). Moll's wishes were to satisfy him. Still, he didn't look for another character to belong to himself. Marking himself as a kind woman realizes Moll exists only through men but focuses on his mind and scope of activity so that he can truly understand that he can control the reader's life in any capacity he prefers. Moll is a character of the newly developing mistress of that time. He has robbed the men of salary, security, and a higher social class.

David Blewett claims in his article, 'Changing Attitudes Toward Marriage in the Time of Defoe: The Case of Moll Flanders' that Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders to show how marriage in society was changing. Blewett states that “Moll’s subsequent marriage career is extended matrimonial whoredom which exhibits her mistaken and corrupt notion of marriage” (85). He continues to recommend that Defoe attempt to utilize Moll to talk to a woman who advances in public. As opposed to growing up and caring about their weddings, or their fathers decided for themselves, women started getting married because of money. The concept of marriage prostitute was a term from Defoe to show that a woman was married for all the wrong reasons. Moll sees marriage as an approach to being fixed and controlling its place in the public eye. It is obvious that Moll weds for the wrong reasons all through the novel. She concedes after she becomes hopelessly enamored and is crushed the first time that she will live from that point on utilizing “thus my pride, not my principle, my money, not my virtue” (91).

Women were more common than they were married and not married. He set aside the traditional standards and ideals of every woman in the eyes of the public and began to pursue a real existence in which he could not control a man. This conflicts with Crampe-Casnabet's depiction of Rousseau's contention that, “the female mind does not form concepts, and the female reason is not a theoretical reason” (329). For this situation, Defoe is showing Moll that he has shaped the idea that men have not shown love for men ever since they upset him. Again, instead of disagreeing with women's point of view, Defoe praises Moll as the ideal choice to settle in such elections. It turns into a model for every woman in society to follow. It doesn't make sense to call her a prostitute, but also tell her she's smart.

He objected to directing his incredible looks and men to give his fortune. Indeed, he can rest around and be constantly with an alternative person, but because he needs it. He simply doesn't choose any person in the city; rather, Moll follows the men who can take on the money for money. His control is fully revealed by his connections with men, and it is clear that Defoe has praised the idea that his novel is merely a prostitute because his men decide to marry him. It is the measure of his wealth when Moll married a refined man in a simple centre. As Crampe-Casnabet asked, “Did women really ask to be declared equal? To judge by what males wrote, women did not ask for equality because it was not to their advantage” (318).

This is comparative musings of each woman at that time and how Defoe portrays Moll to feel. After her first spouse passes away she is “left loose to the world” (Defoe 89). It is not unusual for a woman to have the capacity to be free in public. This is another method that tells Moll that he is free to be with any person, no matter when, at any time. Moll does not want any individual to do what he wants; He does this because he believes he can. Defoe doesn't censor Moll to move quickly or start doing something new, but he does a new clean slate every time. I think this is an attempt by Defoe to show the great contradictions between the traditional and non-traditional aspects of women in the middle of the period. In the early years of Moll, he was seen as a habit of living in childhood in a decent religious family and turned it into money.

When Robin dies, he is forced to settle in his own choices; it’s completely different from the traditional women's challenges. Moll never searches for love; he looks for men who might have a higher social status. Creating another open page is a way for Defoe to give you incredible control of the Moll. If something doesn't go the way it needs, you can take it yourself and move immediately. William Krier claims that “has control of her destiny, she can act directly in her own behalf, but to do so exclusively would be to insult and often to exploit the good faith of others” (410).

In the speech, Krier made here I agree with Moll's view that he controls what he does and that he follows for his own interests. Then again it never loses its individual strength. Moll does not allow any man to secure him; rather, he uses men to improve his control in his own courtesy, in the social status, in the richness and in the eyes of the people. Since Krier's rivalry does not accept Defo's concept of a clean slate, Moll never gives him the chance to prevent him from doing anything to prevent him from doing anything. For instance, when her draper spouse turns into an outlaw on the run she says, “Upon these apprehensions, the first thing I did, was to go quite out of my knowledge, and go by another name: this I did effectually, for I went into the Mint too, took lodgings in a very private place, dressed). Moll essentially goes to the Mint to begin once again. She changes her name and proceeds onward with her life. While she is there she ends up mindful that her general surroundings are out to restrict her control and power.

Defoe portrays this fresh start to be where “the women had lost the privilege of saying NO” (97). d me up in the habit of a widow, and called myself Mrs. Flanders” (Defoe 94). This is a depiction of the eighteenth century England, where society is controlled by male power. Although Moll was completely portrayed as an oppositional similarity through the novel and did not follow the traditional works that women play, he finds finding himself in social order embraced by these men. It shows that the appeal has always left behind any effort for controlling the man. The source of violence is its appearance and identity. Despite the fact that a “Man was characterized by strength and reason ... woman’s distinguishing traits were immutable yet capable of modulation depending on circumstances” Moll benefits from her charm and beauty she learns in living with the Colchester family (Crampe-Casnabet 336).

The critical term for seeing here is 'conditions'. Moll continues his life full of various conditions. Each situation shapes and establishes its control as a woman in society. They manage the methodology for marriage and the ability to re-launch new slates. Likewise, in the eyes of the public, they rule as a dutiful citizen against a criminal. Defoe controls the way in which Moll's character is portrayed by providing the opportunity and capacity to sit on his own preferences. Howard L. Koonce contends in his article, “Moll’s Muddle: Defoe’s use of Irony in Moll Flanders” that Defoe intentionally delivers the character of Moll to have a wreck of a way of life. He can't help contradicting Ian Watt's contention that Moll Flanders falls flat, “to coalesce into any such structural unity” (Koonce 377).

He talks about that Defoe works to the perfection of making a process where the majority of Moll's experiences are “by means of one or more of the following methods, her guilt is acknowledged only to be diverted so that the unacknowledged spring of her destiny is allowed room for another movement” (Koonce 382). This is not a true assumption of the novel, but it is a defeat for him. She was very interested in settling on the choice of discovering another human being to cope with it, or controlling his pre-control by joining comrades and becoming a criminal. When he has no men to devote and balance, his control is disrupted. She doesn't understand what to do next. Moll interest,

In this distress I had no assistant, no friend to comfort or advise me, I sat and cried and tormented myself night and day; wringing my hands, and sometimes raving like a distracted woman; and indeed I have often wondered it had not affected my reason, for I had the vapors to such a degree, that my understanding was sometimes quite lost infancies and imaginations (Defoe 202-203).

Moll, a non-frequent character, is outside of blue weakness. He cannot focus on himself, he is the one who controls his own life and continues to advance without the help of a person. This connects Moll to a man on the next rocking for help and direction in his life. On the contrary, he tells his friends for credibility and changes the intensity of control in the novel from a female point of view.

Moll utilizes the friends to give her a feeling of place in the public arena. She didn't have any man to help her, and she was not willing to surrender the control she held for her very own life. She utilizes this gathering as methods for survival. Srividhya Swaminathan claims Defoe, “represents a female support network among his “minor” character who successfully copes with unstable circumstances arising in the novel; and that his picture of lower-class society suggests that for a woman, homosocial networks are more important than heterosexual coupling” (Swaminathan 187). She's doing what she needs all the time and on the grounds that she has no man to help her in any way she can, these women are there to influence her on an alternative course. At the moment, he controls his own destiny in order to earn a higher class notation, because he thinks that the essential things that remind him of his class and notoriety are extremely important to him. Moll continues to take control of his own life, maintaining a true existence he has chosen. He starts getting very, very unstable. He cries the person to whom he is and leaves his activities to Satan. While the character shows that he is getting better and progressive symptoms of progression, his character starts to turn into a renegade.

I argue that its capacity as a character has not disappeared; instead, I feel this experience to clarify its value in the public sphere. He still cites 'the best sleeping in nature' mistakes, and also considers himself 'the most profitable in this world'. Here Defoe shows Moll, who has no regrets for not doing anything other than influencing her picture. Moll shows his control as 'infinitely dominant' and shows everything Moll continues with his chosen being. She is trying to look at the opposite side, but can't do it yet. Her control is everything she wants and he can't live that nervous. This raised the possibility that Defoe was Moll's unique. For what he does, the vibe demonstrates that he is happy and satisfied for her rather than doing malice. She looks like an ideal life to live, and no matter what, she believes that the individual will be reliably better by herself.

Daniel Defoe is the real 'Credit Man' for Moll. He praises Moll's character for praise by making him radical in his public works against the general public standards. Through him, in the eighteenth century England, he can show two ways how women can be depicted. On the one hand, Moll is a weak, deserted woman hunted by a man to help her and requires her other half to keep her social status in the public realm. On the other hand, he is a solid character, in contradiction with the traditional standards of society, and on many occasions, he can live on his own as a woman by whom a husband can be taken at that time. Model for future change in sex work. This clearly reveals throughout the whole novel that, in spite of Defoe's own difficulties, Moll can consistently hold something in his life, and show that his power is spontaneous.

Work Cited

  • Paul, Kegan. PLEASURE and DANGER: exploring female sexuality. Ed. Carole S. Vance, 1984.
  • Kramer, Ryan, ‘’ A look at Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders: Turn the page and celebrate the new roles of women in eighteen- century England’’, 2012.
  • Tanner, Jakob. ‘’ Standards and Modernity’’, edit. Christian Bonah, 2009, p.p 45- 60 Razzel, Peter. ‘’ The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Critical Reappraisal’’, 1993, p.p 743-771
  • Crampe-Casnabet, Michèle. “A Sampling of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy.” A History of Women in the West- Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes. Ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge. Press of Harvard University Press, 1993, 315-347.
  • Blewett, David. 'Changing Attitudes Toward Marriage In The Time Of Defoe: The Case Of Moll Flanders.' Huntington Library Quarterly ,1981,p-p 77-88.
  • Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. Ed. Paul A. Scanlon. Broadview Editions, 2005.
  • Forster, E M. 'Moll Flanders- Daniel Defoe.' The Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Edward H.KellyNorton & Company, 1973.
  • Koonce, Howard L. 'Moll's Muddle: Defoe's Use of Irony in Moll Flanders.' 1963,p-p 377- 394.
  • Krier, William J. 'A Courtesy Which Grants Integrity: A Literal Reading of Moll Flanders.' 1971,p-p 397-410.
  • Mowry, Melissa. 'Women, Work, Rearguard Politics, and Defoe's Moll Flanders.' Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation ,Texas Tech University Press,2008,p-p 97-116.
  • Novak, Maximillian E. 'Defoe's 'Indifferent Monitor': The Complexity of Moll Flanders.' Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1970, p-p 351-365.
  • O’Brien, John F. “The Character of Credit: Defoe’s “Lady Credit,” “The Fortunate Mistress”, and the Resources of Inconsistency in Early- Eighteenth-Century Britain.” 1996,p-p 603-631.
  • Sohier, Jacques. 'Moll Flanders and the Rise of the Complete Gentlewoman-Tradeswoman.' Eighteenth-Century Novel 2. ,2002,p-p 1-21.
  • Swaminathan, Srividhya. 'Defoe's Alternative Conduct Manual: Survival Strategies and Female Networks in Moll Flanders.' Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2003, p.185.
Updated: Jan 21, 2022
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A Woman from the Eighteenth Century in England. (2022, Jan 21). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/a-woman-from-the-eighteenth-century-in-england-essay

A Woman from the Eighteenth Century in England essay
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