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Film, television, or theatrical adaptations. A 1965 film adaptation titled The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders starred Kim Novak as Moll Flanders and Richard Johnson as Jemmy with Angela Lansbury as Lady Blystone, with George Sanders as the banker, and Lilli Palmer as Dutchy.
- Daniel Defoe
- 1931
The best study guide to Moll Flanders on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
Moll Flanders, picaresque novel by Daniel Defoe, published in 1722. The novel recounts the adventures of a lusty and strong-willed woman who is compelled, from earliest childhood, to make her own way in 17th-century England.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Moll Flanders (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes Moll Flanders Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays.
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Media Adaptations
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
Daniel Defoe published Moll Flandersin 1722 after a long career of writing nonfiction. Many critics have speculated that Defoe's story of a beautiful and greedy woman who turns to crime is not a novel in the true sense but a work combining biography and fiction. Defoe (and others) wrote numerous accounts of various women in early eighteenth-century...
Looking over the full life of Daniel Defoe, there seems to be little that the Englishman did not attempt or experience. He was a trainee for the ministry, a poet, a businessman, a shopkeeper, a historian, an investor, a soldier, and a writer of fictional works as well as political and social tracts. Many of his business dealings put him on the brin...
The Preface
Defoe's narrator opens Moll Flandersas the person who has edited Moll's first-person story of her life. He implores the novel's readers to learn something from his story of a woman drawn to crime and to pay attention less to the fabulous tales of misdeeds and felonies and more to the moral of the story.
Section One
Moll Flanders relates the circumstances of her birth at London's Newgate Prison to a woman imprisoned for stealing cloth. She is reared by gypsies until she is three years old when she is trans-ferred to a home run by a woman she refers to as the nurse, who schools Moll in needlework and manners. By the time Moll is eight, she knows that she does not intend to become a servant, even though that is what is expected of her by the town authorities, given her lack of financial means. She decides,...
Section Two
Eventually Moll finds a new husband, the draper, who is a rake and is arrested for his debts. He breaks out of prison and escapes to France. Moll finds herself in a tight situation again, gives herself the name of Mrs. Flanders, and changes her address. She moves in with a woman (a captain's widow) who gets married soon after, leaving Moll on her own again. Moll, with the help of her former roommate, devises a scheme in which rumors are spread that Moll has a huge fortune. She receives quite...
The Bank Clerk
Moll meets the bank clerk just before she is about to go to Lancashire and feels that she needs someone to hold her money in London while she is away. He almost immediately expresses romantic interest in her, telling Moll that his wife is a whore. Moll likes him, noting that he is a stable man, but she puts off his advances for some time, until he is able to divorce his wife. They eventually marry, have children, and live happily until the bank clerk dies from grief over losing most of the fa...
The Draper
The draper is Moll's second husband. During her marriage to him, Moll says she "had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of my money spent upon myself." The draper ends up in prison for failing to pay his debts but escapes and flees to France, leaving Moll with "a husband, and no husband." Because of the draper's bad credit, Moll changes her name to Mrs. Flanders and moves to the Mint, a neighborhood where debtors find legal sanctuary.
The Elder Brother
The elder brother is Moll's first love, a handsome but tricky young man. His mother and sisters find Moll clever and ask her to live with them after the woman who originally took in Moll dies. The elder brother flatters Moll and eventually gets her into his bed with promises of marriage and gifts. But he considers Moll his mistress and has no intentions of marrying her. Eventually, he tires of Moll and creates a series of deceptions, putting Moll into a position where she must marry his broth...
In 1965, Paramount adapted Moll Flanders as a film entitled The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders, starring Kim Novak and Richard Johnson, and directed by Terence Young. It is available as a vide...In 1996, Robin Wright, Morgan Freeman, and Stockard Channing starred in a big-screen version of the novel titled simply Moll Flanders, produced by MGM and directed by Pen Den-sham. It is available...In 1975, the British Broadcasting Corporation produced Moll Flandersfor the television screen, in two episodes.In 1981, Granada Television (U.K.) produced a four-part television version entitled Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, starring Alex Kingston as Moll Flanders and directed by David Atwood....Money
Truly, in Moll Flanders, money makes the world go around. Hardly a page goes by in the novel without a mention of money. Moll's money worries begin at the age of eight when Moll must figure out a way to avoid being placed in servitude. To do this, she tells the nurse who has taken her in that she can work, and that eventually she will earn her own way in the world. When the nurse expresses doubt that Moll can really earn her keep, Moll responds, "I will work harder, says I, and you shall have...
Sexuality
Defoe is not shy about making clear that Moll is fairly free with sexual favors, and that they are often tied to receiving money. In fact, on the novel's original frontispiece, Defoe states that Moll is "twelve year a whore." She loses her virginity to the elder brother and remains his mistress in return for a promise of marriage and money. Although she and the gentleman she meets in Bath both insist on remaining platonic companions, she eventually initiates sex one night after they have shar...
Secrets and Lies
Moll's life is filled with secrets and lies. She is cagey from the beginning as to her real name. She begins her story indicating that she has lived under a variety of names, but that the book's readers should refer to her as Moll Flanders "till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am." Nearly every time she moves from one relationship to another, she gives a fabricated name to her latest beau; but oddly enough, she rarely reveals what that new name is in the text of the book. Moll is...
Create a time line showing the major political, religious, social, scientific, and cultural events that occurred while Moll Flanders and Daniel Defoe lived (the late 1600s through the early 1700s).Elizabeth Frye was an English prison reform activist who lived from 1780 to 1845. She especially worked to improve conditions for female prisoners at Newgate Prison. Investigate the prison reform m...Syphilis and other venereal diseases were common in London during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Research the prevalence of these diseases and how it compares to their current...Choose an episode from Moll Flandersthat you especially like, and write a script for a soap opera featuring the episode. Update the characters, setting, and events as you think appropriate to a pre...Picaresque Novel
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. The construction of these novels, like that of Moll Flanders, is typically episodic, and the hero or heroine is a cynical and amoral rascal who lives by his or her wits.
Structure
Defoe did not use chapter or section divisions to break up the work. The action moves chronologically, though, and is divided into close to one hundred different episodes. Defoe covers long periods of time with sweeping statements, as when Moll refers to her first marriage by saying, "It concerns the story in hand very little to enter into the farther particulars of the family,… for the five years I liv'd with this husband." Defoe begins the novel with a preface in which he claims that the st...
Point-of-View
Defoe wrote the novel in the first person, with Moll telling the story of her life. This form brings Moll close to readers, as if she is speaking directly to them. As well, Moll tells her story from the vantage point of being nearly seventy years old and being, purportedly, repentant. She pauses occa-sionally in the action to speak from her position as a penitent seventy-year-old and cautions about particular behaviors and choices.
The American Colonies and the English Economy
In the novel, Moll sails to Virginia twice: first as the wife of a plantation owner, and second as a convicted criminal sentenced to serve time as a slave. In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, Virginia was an English colony, evidence of expanding English overseas interests in the name of trade and political power. Settled in the early 1600s, Virginia was a thriving and important complement to England's economy by the early 1700s. During this period, wealth came progre...
The Role of Women
While the philosophy of the eighteenth century Enlightenment period addressed such issues as individual liberties, social welfare, economic liberty, and education, these concerns did not translate into major changes for women between the late 1600s and early 1700s. In fact, there are indications that the status of women declined during this period; in 1600, more than two-thirds of the businesses in London were reported to be owned by women, but by the end of the eighteenth century, that rate...
1700s: London's population reaches 550,000, up from 450,000 in 1660. Despite losing as many as 100,000 citizens to the Great Plague in 1665, and the destruction of much of the city in 1666 during t...1700s: Middle-and upper-class English women have more economic options than lower-class women; however, women are increasingly excluded from productive work as their social status increases. Opport...1700s: Black slaves comprise 24 percent of the Virginia colony's population in 1715, up from less than 5 percent in 1671. Slavery is not abolished in Virginia until after the United States Civil Wa...Early 1700s: The English criminal Jack Sheppard is famous for his astonishing escapes from custody, particularly his 1724 escape from Newgate Prison. His exploits became the subject of numerous nar...Get everything you need to know about Genre in Moll Flanders. Analysis, related characters, quotes, themes, and symbols.
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As an infant, Moll lives on public charity, under the care of a kind widow who teaches her manners and needlework. She grows into a beautiful teenager and is seduced at an early age. Abandoned by her first lover, she is compelled to marry his younger brother.
