On Moll's Identity Construction In Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) is an important and controversial writer of the eighteenth- century English Literature. He mainly concerns about the ordinary life of the ordinary people and depicts in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner. The protagonist of Moll Flanders (1722) is the first female character among Daniel Defoe's novels with first-person narrator. As an orphan in a man-dominated, money-orientated society from the lowest social class, she courageously defies her low birth and eventually manages to achieve the self-designated identity of a gentlewoman. Moll's female identity and her extraordinary experiences made her a highly ambiguous, problematic character in literary studies.Along with the integration of cultural studies and literary studies, identity becomes one of the focuses to explore the profound meaning of literary works, and nourished and strengthened by studying literary works. This thesis attempts to study Moll Flanders, centering on Moll's searching for a gentlewoman identity under inferior circumstances, examining her growth in femininity through the various roles as a wife, a thief, a prisoner, a penitent etc., trying to reveal the dilemma of women in the eighteenth-century England and the hardship they paid in changing their fates.At the age of eight, Moll has set up her mind to become a"gentlewoman"whose definition is to"be able to Work for herself, and get enough to keep her without that terrible Bug-bear going to Service". It not only expresses Moll's eagerness to have a fixed identity and work independently, but also becomes the fuel of Moll's life-long self-struggling. But as a woman without property, Moll is doomed to face many difficulties during the process of her identity seeking and constructing on the"desert land"of London.Chapter One focuses on the young Moll's eagerness and determination in denying her humble birth and setting up an independent, self-designated"gentlewoman"identity through her honest hard work. But soon Moll learns that under all kinds of social barriers and with the development of mass production, it is hard for her to change her identity only through her needlework since she can not get enough capital from it to maintain a gentlewoman identity. Then her eagerness for a gentlewoman identity pushes her to resort to marriage. But Moll is still too young to realize that marriage has become a tool for men to acquire their capital, and her low birth and lack of money makes her unable to change her identity through marriage since only money recommends a woman. Chapter Two discusses that under the pressure of survival, the adult Moll consciously disguises herself as a gentlewoman investing in the marriage market and with thief career. During this period Moll's understanding about gentlewoman has changed but she is still desperate in changing her identity. Though she has earned enough to maintain a so-called economically independent gentlewoman through her talents in marital deals and thief career, the immorality of her deeds often put her into the muddle of self-confusion. Chapter Three mainly analyzes that through the sincere repentance at the Newgate and the diligent work in the New World, the aged Moll regains her psychological sense of self and the stability in economy and finally achieves her gentlewoman identity.As a male writer, Defoe breaks up the stereotype of the traditional literature and makes a criminal female as the protagonist of his novel, which shows his great concerns on women's survival and his approval of the gender equality. Setting Moll's constant eagerness for and pursuing of middle-class gentlewoman identity as the main line, this thesis tries to show Defoe's great concern about the hardship of the low classes'survival especially the females'survival dilemma in the eighteenth-century England and his criticism to the uneven social order rather than to Moll's immorality. Moll's continuing in searching for a identity is rooted in the unequal social order, and through her hardness in identity construction Defoe shows that on the one hand he is in approval of the person with courageous and positive attitude towards the difficulties in life, on the other hand under the social and historical context of the eighteenth-century England, the traditional social ethics and male-oriented concept made women's self-construction face many severe limitations and challenges.