Moll As a Masculine Woman: A Reading of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders

Abstract

This paper studies the role, imposed by society, of Moll Flanders, the heroine in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders. She is unusual in that she escapes from the conventionally imposed role as a woman and proceeds to become a woman, more specifically, a masculine woman, who adopts so-called masculine features to survive in a male-dominated society. In order to obtain the means to sustain, she deserts her own children, take advantage of men, steals, and deceives, using her courage, slyness, intelligence, or business strategy. While pursuing her ways to survive, she gets hardened to her guilt, through showing off her pride in or proving her ability, even when she has obtained enough fund to live. Finally she gets caught and incarcerated. In jail, she alters and repents on what she has done. She reassumes her feminine values and becomes a new person who can feel and love. Through the process of her repentance Defoe reveals his belief in the balance of the masculine and the feminine in making this world livable. Defoe demanded society be reformed so that woman did not have to be a masculine woman to survive in society.(Hannam University)