Daniel Defoe and the Impossibility of Irony in Moll Flanders

Much of the critical debate surrounding Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders centers around whether the author makes good on his promise in the preface that the story will be morally instructive. For instance, Ira Konigsberg makes the statement that “One of the book’s contradictions that Defoe never resolves is in the conflicting arguments for necessity and morality” (37). This seems to be a misunderstanding of the point that for Defoe necessity is part of morality and vice versa.

A temptation certainly exists to view that attitude as an indication of irony, but Defoe was not, contrary to much opinion, writing an ironic novel. He was actually writing a very realistic novel which expressed not only his own, but much of society’s view that there had emerged in the sixteenth century a tonal shift in morality away from religious values placed upon suspicion of commerce and avarice rooted in the Middle Ages toward morality based on a religious suspicion of indigence and sloth.

The lesson in morality contained in Moll Flanders is that she is a positive and virtuous exemplar of the new paradigm of the economic individual that Defoe envisioned as being completely necessary to maintaining the growth of England as a power that was promised by the emerging economic structure of the 18th century.

That Moll Flanders is meant to be seen solely as a realistically rendered moral heroine can be adduced by comparing her economic worldview with that of her creator, and in doing so it is obvious that Defoe was creating a fully realized mouthpiece for his own personal theories on the necessity of economic aspiration as a means of moral salvation.

Moll says at one point, “marriages were here the consequences of politic schemes, for forming interests, carrying on business, and that love had no share or but very little in the matter” (46). Moll learns this lesson early and it is a guiding force for her throughout the rest of her life. Defoe himself “defended commercial marriages on the grounds that building a business was more worthy than marrying for lust” (Grassby 305).

Much that Moll expresses coincides with Defoe’s point of view as clearly as their shared view on the economic importance of marriage. Robert Allan Donovan dances around this concept when he writes “it is possible to regard every detail as relevant to the characterization of Moll and at the same time comformable to Defoe’s ordinary mental processes” (22). Ian Watt, however, is much more explicit and much closer to the mark: “Defoe’s identification with Moll Flanders was so complete that, despite a few feminine traits, he created a personality that was in essence his own” (115).

In Moll, Defoe created an engaging character who personifies almost every socio-economic theory he expressed in his multitudinous non-fiction writings on the topics of trade and commerce. It seems inconceivable that Defoe would have created a character who so clearly was designed to stand as a beacon shining the light of his economic theories and not be considered a heroic, admirable, and entirely moral figure.

The moral that Defoe is providing in Moll Flanders is decidedly not the ironic one that capitalism and commerce are bad for England which some critics misread, but rather the absolute reverse; that, in fact, the pursuit of upward mobility by the middle class is a moral imperative and, furthermore, that the methods of gaining upward mobility are not limited to those historically seen as virtuous. Defoe’s sense of economically based morality may seem a bit warped to twentieth century readers and that may be why so many are so insistent on reading the novel ironically, but in fact he was not out of step with many of his contemporaries, including many of his fellow writers.

Twentieth-century readers were conditioned to read novels about business and commerce as cautionary tales about the unscrupulous behavior of those who run their lives according to their love of money, at the expense of all who stand in their way. It may be difficult for those readers to understand the mindset that produced writers in the Restoration and 18th century who were “favorably inclined toward business, seeing it as a great civilizing force and as a means of attaining both widespread material prosperity and world peace” (Meier 11).

The moral world order had gone topsy-turvy between the dark ages and the Renaissance, with the result that money was now good and poverty was now bad. “As a result of a new emphasis on economic achievementâÂ?¦indigence was both shameful in itself and presumptive evidence of present wickedness and future damnation” (Watt 95). Watt is entirely on target here and Moll Flanders is representative of the new mindset he expresses. Moll reflects Defoe’s concept that pursuing upward social mobility in any way she can is tantamount to living morally.

“Defoe saw economic success as a special kind of election and was willing to be less concerned about the moral value of the deeds which lead to that success” (Konigsberg 43). Marrying not for love, but money; earning money as a whore; resorting to thievery when her attractiveness to men begins to fade are all justifiable to both Defoe and Moll because nothing could be morally worse than winding up in Newgate or becoming a beggar.

This attitude is exemplified in the text when Moll becomes so distraught that she is moved toward seeking penitence after she finally winds up in Newgate, and when she quickly casts herself as physically and spiritually unable to go out in disguise as a beggar during her career as a thief. As Watt points out, Defoe’s heroes “would rather steal than beg, and they would lose their own self-respect-and the reader’s-if they did not exhibit this characteristic hubris of economic man” (95).

This pride Watt is speaking of attaches itself to every action that Moll undertakes. At every point in the novel, Moll sees herself as a gentlewoman, whether she actually is one or not, and that informs every undertaking with a sense of questing for betterment for herself, indeed with the sense that she is somehow owed the ability to better herself. Thomas Keith Meier says that Paul Dottin’s description goes even further than Watt’s questioning take on Defoe’s ethics: “His scrupolosity was based on the old saying ‘the end justifies the means.’ Success, interpreted as material gain, was the keynote of his philosophy and, indeed, of his morality” (81).

To put it bluntly: Moll Flanders’ whoring, arranging financial marriages and even her descent into thievery are all perfectly acceptable means of gaining upward social mobility to both herself and Defoe. All of these are of a piece and present the novel as being morally cohesive despite criticisms to contrary such as Konigsberg’s when he writes “the morality in the novel is to be taken at face value” (41).

On the contrary, every single seemingly immoral act which Moll perpetrates is to be seen as completely in keeping with the economic morality expressed by Defoe in his non-fiction writings. Watt understands this when he writes that Moll Flanders “is a characteristic product of modern individualism in assuming that she owes it to herself to achieve the highest economic and social rewards, and in using every available method to carry out her resolve” (94). “She is even morally pure in her whoring since it is, as she assures us, by necessity and not ‘for the sake of the vice'” (Watt, 114).

Watt’s reading is completely at odds with Konigsberg’s contention stated earlier that there is a contradiction between necessity and morality. Watt’s seems the more reasonable interpretation when he connects necessity to morality rather than making them separate issues as does Konigsberg. Defoe explicitly expresses this outlook in his The Complete English Tradesman when he maintained that “the needy prostitute is free of guilt and that her lustful customer is wholly responsible for the sin committed” (Meier 87).

The unnamed woman-and Moll-became prostitutes entirely out of necessity and it is this necessity that is the crux of the novel. What exactly is Moll needful of? Moll’s great need was obviously not just enough money to keep her off the street and out of Newgate. She achieved that goal during her career as a thief. Yet she still continued plying her trade. Why? Because Moll clearly wanted to rise as high in society as it was possible for her to rise. And for Defoe that meant as high as she wanted to go because her economic success would eventually contribute to the economic success of the country at large.

Defoe felt that everyone should pursue economic individualism and “regarded birth as irrelevant to the kind of individual one became in society” (Shinagel 123). Defoe even contended that “‘the son of a mean person furnish’d from heaven with an original fund of wealth, wit, sense, courage, virtue and good humor, and set apart by a liberal education for the service of his countryâÂ?¦must be allowdâÂ?¦into the rank of gentleman'” (Shinagel 225). Of course, Defoe was referring here explicitly to males who wished for upward mobility. The unintentionally ironic reading of Moll Flanders can be attributed in part to the fact she is a woman attempting upward mobility and therefore her means are substantially different from that of a man.

Because she is clearly meant to be seen heroically by the novel’s end, Daniel Defoe wants Moll to achieve success in her pursuit of upward social mobility, and because his morality on the subject of what is acceptably available for women to do in order to attain that success is in direct conflict with changing attitudes since the novel was written, the novel has come to be viewed ironically by those who cannot accept that Defoe could possibly have been serious in presenting the events of Moll’s life as a realistic lesson in virtue. For the most part, the men in Moll Flanders are men whose manner of livelihood can even now be respected: gentlemen, tradesmen, plantation owners, bankers, ship captains, businessmen and ministers. True, there are also the occasional thieves, but for the most part the men in Moll’s orbit would be respectable even today.

Not so the women. Almost without exception, the women that Moll encounters must earn their keep through some manner of debasement: tricking a man into marriage, prostituting themselves, pickpocketing, fencing stolen goods. Moll engages in most of these actions and doesn’t seem to be considered by Defoe any worse the wear from a moral standpoint. As G.A. Starr says, “‘Moll’s world is one in which things are not good or evil, but characteristically good and yet evil'” (Richetti104). One way of interpreting this viewpoint is to understand that while whoring and thievery may in themselves be traditionally evil actions from a Ten Commandments sort of moral standpoint, the ultimate goal of Moll in undertaking them is to achieve the good that comes from acquiring economic independence.

The general resistance to Moll Flanders being read entirely realistically rests in part on the basis that what seemed entirely reasonable to Defoe as a means for a woman to advance herself in 17th and 18th England is entirely anathema to later readers whose vision of the morality of economics simply cannot coincide with Defoe’s in a realistic attitude. Ian Watt keenly explains the problem when he writes that “We cannot believe that so intelligent a man as Defoe should have viewed either his heroine’s economic attitudes or her pious protestations with anything other than derision. Defoe’s other writings, however, do not support this belief” (127).

Defoe’s other writings reveal a man quite comfortable with the practice of slavery and who would unblinkingly side with trade if a dispute arose between trade and religion (Meier 82) so, in fact, it would be quite surprising if Defoe expressed any discomfort with the actions undertaken by his heroine to achieve their shared vision of economic individualism. Nevertheless, one cannot help but be troubled by the fact that Moll Flanders is only allowed to pursue her dream of rising in society through means which become ever more degrading and humiliating. She begins by simply trading away love for security through marriage. Eventually, she does away with the marriage and simply trades sex for money.

At her lowest point, she will become an unrepentant criminal. Defoe seems strangely unconcerned that the only apparent choices that England’s evolving capitalistic system offered women as a means of achieving upward mobility were choices that ultimately shamed them. As Robert Alan Donovan observes, “If the book teaches a lesson, as Defoe piously assures us, it had nothing to do with the wages of sin; it is a lesson in how to succeed at the confidence game” (26). Capitalism for women at the time the book was written can only be seen in retrospect as the ultimate confidence game, one that the novel roundly endorses.

Moll Flanders is a direct fictional interpretation of Daniel Defoe’s non-fiction writings concerning his socio-economic theories and the importance of pursuing upward social mobility to England’s continued independence. Throughout his non-fiction writings, Daniel Defoe showed himself to be consistently and defiantly in favor of commerce. He was also convinced that the middle-class person not only could, but should attempt to better themselves.

“The attributes of commerce which Defoe repeatedly emphasizes are its service to the state, by making the nation economically powerful; to civilization generally, by encouraging peace and fostering liberty; to all classes of society, by improving their standards of living; and to the businessman in particular, by improving his mind and increasing his social status: all with the approbation of God” (Meier, 40). Moll Flanders must be considered an unimpeachable heroine because she exemplifies this point of view.

If everyone followed Moll’s course, the country would become more economically powerful, peaceful, with the standard of living raised considerably and all of this with the blessing of God. Defoe promises in the preface that “there is not a wicked action in any part of it but is first or last rendered unhappy and unfortunate” (vii). By the end of the novel, Moll has to be considered very happy and very fortunate, raising the question of whether any of her actions can now be considered wicked if Defoe is intent on keeping the promise.

The novel is coherent and unified when compared to Defoe’s oft-stated economic theories, therefore everything Moll did must be considered not only moral and justified, but admirably so. Moll Flanders must be regarded as a realistic, unironic heroine who personifies the economic individual contributing to the evolving capitalistic system which would soon turn England into the dominant world power of her time.