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    Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides)
    Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides)
    Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides)
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides)

    By Susan Gallagher

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    About this ebook

    REA's MAXnotes for Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders MAXnotes offer a fresh look at masterpieces of literature, presented in a lively and interesting fashion. Written by literary experts who currently teach the subject, MAXnotes will enhance your understanding and enjoyment of the work. MAXnotes are designed to stimulate independent thought about the literary work by raising various issues and thought-provoking ideas and questions. MAXnotes cover the essentials of what one should know about each work, including an overall summary, character lists, an explanation and discussion of the plot, the work's historical context, illustrations to convey the mood of the work, and a biography of the author. Each chapter is individually summarized and analyzed, and has study questions and answers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherResearch & Education Association
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9780738672373
    Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides)

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      Moll Flanders (MAXNotes Literature Guides) - Susan Gallagher

      Bibliography

      SECTION ONE

      Introduction

      The Life and Work of Daniel Defoe

      Born in London in 1660, Daniel Defoe became one of the most productive and versatile writers in British history. His works included, along with novels such as Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe, hundreds of political tracts and pamphlets, books on history, economics, and geography, as well as guides to family living and business success. For many years, Defoe single-handedly produced his own newspaper, the Review, which dealt with topics ranging from the social implications of crime to the scientific aspects of astrology.

      Despite his remarkable energy, Defoe never escaped the economic insecurity that characterized his early life. Because his father, James Foe, a butcher and candlemaker, dissented from the teachings of the Church of England, the family was denied access to established business and political circles and faced constant economic distress. In an effort to procure a better life for their son, Defoe’s parents sent him to study at Newington Green, a well-known school for religious dissenters, where they hoped he would prepare for a career as a Presbyterian minister. However, in 1679, after five years of study, Defoe left school to try his hand in the clothing trade.

      Thanks in part to a large dowry (£3,700) he received upon marrying Mary Tuffley in 1684, Defoe became a relatively prosperous tradesman for nearly a decade. Around this time, he began to sign himself as de Foe or Defoe, an alteration that lent his family name a somewhat aristocratic air. Unfortunately, when war with France broke out in 1692, Defoe’s business suffered major losses. He was forced into bankruptcy and narrowly escaped imprisonment for debt. While slowly paying off his creditors, he managed to invest in a small tile factory. However, even though his writings on trade display great insight into the principles of modern commerce, he failed to achieve his own economic success.

      While pursuing his business interests, Defoe served as a secret agent and propagandist for William of Orange, a Protestant who occupied the throne from 1688 until 1702. Defoe produced a steady stream of pamphlets in support of the King’s policies. However, rather than establishing himself as an advocate for the Whigs, the more progressive party in eighteenth—century British politics, or aligning himself with the Tories, who tended toward more conservative views, Defoe alienated influential leaders on both sides. Soon after Queen Anne succeeded William, Defoe was charged with high crimes and misdemeanors for writing The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, a satire on religious intolerance. He spent three months in Newgate Prison where, with his usual resourcefulness, he seized the opportunity to explore the social and psychological characteristics of his fellow inmates.

      Defoe’s incarceration destroyed the last remnants of his small fortune. In order to save his family from complete destitution, he struck a deal with a powerful politician and agreed to write the Review in support of the policies of the Tory government. A few years later, when the Whigs came to power, Defoe quickly switched to their party line. From then on, it became clear that Defoe was willing to write for anyone who would pay him for his service. While generally known as a Tory, he secretly authored dozens of pro-Whig tracts and pamphlets, a practice which allowed him to sustain himself as a political journalist, but placed him in constant danger of exposure and arrest.

      In late middle age, Defoe turned to novel writing. His first and most famous novel, Robinson Crusoe, was published in 1719 and, over the next three years, he produced two more great works of fiction, Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year. The familiarity of Defoe’s characters, the clarity of his prose, and the riveting adventures described in his stories made his work both accessible and appealing to a new segment of the reading public, the expanding middle class. Though critics have often faulted him for his tendency to dwell on vulgar subjects, the way his narratives explore the psychological motivations of unified and believable characters has earned him a widely accepted reputation as the first authentic novelist.

      Many of Defoe’s works, both fiction and nonfiction, were popular in his time. His literary accomplishments did not, however, protect him from his creditors. During the final years of his life, Defoe attempted to evade the demands of debt collectors by hiding out in a boarding house in Ropemaker’s Alley in London. He died there, harried until the end, in 1731.

      Historical Background

      During Defoe’s lifetime, commercial development transformed the social, economic, and political structure of Great Britain. The founding of the Bank of England, the rise of the stock market, and the growth of huge trading companies between the 1690’s and 1730’s laid the financial groundwork for the subsequent evolution of the British empire. As Defoe observed in his Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, crowds of eager investors poured into London hoping to strike it rich in Exchange Alley, the side street in which stock-jobbers (later known as brokers) plied their trade. Reflecting on the feverish speculation in stocks and the craze for financial schemes that characterized this period, Defoe concluded that British society had entered what he termed the Projecting Age.

      This new commercial spirit pervades Defoe’s work. In his economic pamphlets, such as Giving Alms No Charity (1704) and The Complete English Tradesman (1732), Defoe defended the pursuit of economic self-interest both as an individual right and as an exercise of personal responsibility. Against the aristocratic notion that property should be gained and maintained mainly through inheritance, he argued that access to riches ought to be determined by the ability of individuals to plan carefully, work diligently, and take full advantage of every opportunity to accumulate additional wealth. In light of these assertions, Defoe has often been singled out as one of the cardinal spokesmen for modern capitalism, that is, an economic system in which the fate of individuals is controlled by their capacity to respond to market forces, rather than dictated strictly by their social class.

      While Defoe seemed to celebrate economic self-interest in many of his essays, his novels and other occasional writings explore the irrational aspects of the pursuit of private gain.

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