Feminist Ideas on Moll Flanders

Feminist ideas on Moll Flanders

Women have always faced failure since the creation of Adam and Eve in western societies. Moll Flanders has a mentality of that she needs to make her fortune off of men. Due to how she only had a few options when it came to how she can make money, people perceived her as a promiscuous woman. Women like Moll Flanders would not consider their worth when it came to their social status and stance in society. Although the Feminist movement did not come about until the 1960's Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders incorporates some major key principles that have to do with the idea of feminism (Woloch, Feminist movement).

Moll Flanders is a classic novel written by Daniel Defoe. The birth of Moll occurred at the Newgate prison due to how her mother endured the conviction of theft. Shortly after Moll’s birth, her mother gets transported to the colonies. Moll then lives off of the public charity where she learns needlework. After her first lover leaves her, she marries his brother. He shortly dies a few years after. Shortly after her first marriage, she marries four more times and transpired as someone's mistress one time. Soon after her last husband dies Moll had to fend for herself. Moll has to live several years in poverty, and soon after she starts to steal. Even though she remained a known expert at it she eventually gets caught and sentenced to death. While she remained at Newgate prison her and her Lancashire husband meet again. They both manage to get their sentences reduced. Then they both get transported to the colonies.

Since women held a hoax like position in a male dominated society, they had very little choices when it came to what they could do. "Women, as the descendants of Eve, intellectually and emotionally inferior to men" (Erler 1). Females remained seen as weaker than males. In the eighteenth century, women only had four choices when it came to