One of the most significant characteristics of Defoe's
Moll Flanders is his inclusion of perspective. Moll Flanders is
herself, the narrator. She has been through a lot and she writes with tremendous
perspective on how the world works and what hazards there are. She writes as an older
woman who has lived her life in effort of jumping social classes. She was born in
Newgate prison and after many misadventures, prison terms and failed relationships, she
ends up being married relatively happily and free from
prison.
Moll's perspective in all of this comes from her
experiences. She has tremendous knowledge about all of society. She is a lower
class citizen and criminal, but she has lived with and even married higher class
men. Defoe even includes an episode in which she is conned out of her money by a con-man
whom she was trying to con herself. She knows the games of all social classes and what
it takes to survive in the world.
For example, in talking
about relationships with men, she says:
On the contrary, the Women have ten Thousand
times the more Reason to be wary, and backward, by how much the hazard of being betray'd
is the greater; and would the Ladies consider this, and act the wary Part, they would
discover every Cheat that offer'd; for, in short, the Lives of very few Men now a-Days
will bear a Character; and if the ladies do but make a little Enquiry, they will soon be
able to distinguish the Men, and deliver
themselves.
As illustrated
here, Moll speaks from experience. She is one of the women that have seen the "hazard of
being betray'd." Defoe's use of this perspective adds verisimilitude to the work as a
whole.
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