˂-Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders: Recent Critical Dimensions How should readers interpret the seeming contradictory character that Daniel Defoe presents in Moll Flanders? Is her penitence a construction of irony? While the question of irony was prominent in the earlier criticism of the 1950s and 1960s, most scholars have moved away from that question, acknowledging the existence of various types of irony and validating the true reformation of Moll. Critics are now articulating other subtle and complex authorial strategies in Moll Flanders besides the use of irony, crediting Defoe with more of what it takes to be a "father of the novel." Newer critical methodologies involving class and gender are also playing a role in establishing Defoe as advocate of social change. Unfortunately, critics dealing with Moll Flanders lack as yet a truly definitive text from which to work. The best one can do is to stay with texts founded on the first 1722 edition. I list several which are satisfactory. Texts taken from later editions, the second and third and later, may be abridged, and scholars have persuasively argued that such editions do not reflect Defoe's intentions or revisions. Despite the short-comings in textual scholarship on the novel, recent years have seen no dearth of literary criticism. Defoe as innovative developer of narrative technique in the novel is a considerable topic of conversation in critical circles. No longer are we hearing complaints about artificially connected, episodic writing and plot inconsistencies. Ian Watt notes a "lack of co-ordination between the different aspects of [Defoe's] narrative purpose" (118) in Moll Flanders, as well as denying a conscious and consistent employment of irony, but he also praises Defoe for narrative successes in the creation of scenes and the development of the theme of individualism. Others have followed Watt's laud for Defoe's technique, uncovering additional complexities in his contribution to the genre of novel. David Blewett finds Defoe's work much more unified along several lines, addressing the incorporation of complex ironies that challenge stable society in such areas as family relations and marriage. Overall, he attributes careful narrative planning to Defoe. In the exploration of Defoe's narrative strategies, critics such as Maximillian E. Novak, Paula R. Backscheider, and Lincoln B. Faller are illuminating the dimensions of his language. In his Realism, Myth, and History in Defoe's Fiction, Novak points out patterns of wordplay and double entendre that convey subtle meanings and notes manipulations of tense that enable curious blending of past and present. Faller coins the term "trialogue" in recognizing a dialogue involving two characters and the audience present in Moll Flanders and rarely occurring in other literature of Defoe's contemporaries. In the critical study, Moll Flanders: The Making of a Criminal Mind, Backscheider calls attention to elements of Defoe's prose style--its realistic, conversational, oral style. In examining the use of various Defoe strategies, inevitably, questions will arise over what ideas conveyed are Defoe's and which are Moll's--or other than Defoe's own. Debate ranges on this topic. Again, Ian Watt presents a starting point: "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). For Watt Defoe shares middle class trade-consciousness with Moll. Other scholars find interesting and perhaps unexpected connections between author and character. For instance, in addressing the novel as spiritual autobiography, Stuart Sim asserts, "When Defoe brings to the fore those paradoxes [in Calvinist soteriology] and demonstrates their effects on his characters' lives and psychology, then he is at his most stimulating, thought-provoking and ideologically subversive" (17). Defoe is expressing his own interior religious questions. John Richetti detects a juxtaposition of conflicting values in "The Family, Sex, and Marriage in Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana. Defoe writes separately on "family values" in The Family Instructor and Conjugal Lewdness, yet he is fascinated by other possibilities in women's sexual behavior, writing anti-institutional viewpoints into his fiction. So, for Richetti, Defoe's views are and are not Moll's. Michael M. Boardman sees a more distinct separation between character and author; Defoe is the compiler of Moll's "memoirs" and is ideologically detached. Modern theoretical approaches dealing with economics, class, and gender have also been employed to develop the social significance of the novel. Novak explores the economic aspects of Moll Flanders in Economics and the Fiction of Daniel Defoe, discussing the economic courtship in which Moll must participate and placing Defoe's work as an important precursor to the social novel in the mode of Emile Zola. He also comments on the "heroic" status granted colonizers. David Trotter also looks at economic roles, addressing Moll as an economic being struggling to achieve individualism. Ellen Pollack focuses on Moll's refusal to comply with the rules of male economy. An interesting category of criticism which I would term Marxist/feminist includes such critics as Ellen Pollack, Lois Chaber and Carol Houlihan Flynn. An approach to the novel utilizing only class models would indeed be difficult as Moll's femininity is so integral to her class/economic identity, so this duel method becomes natural. In The Body in Swift and Defoe Flynn looks at Moll as victim of both sexual oppression and capitalism falling out of a comfortable role in many spheres. Chaber explores the relationship of marriage, capitalism, and crime and presents Moll as escaping from the patriarchal, capitalistic "anticommunity." Feminist criticism appears to be the burgeoning area in Moll Flanders studies. Along with Richetti, Flynn, in "Defoe's Idea of Conduct: Ideological Fictions and Fictional Reality," places Moll Flanders in the context of Defoe's writings on conduct; she detects a comedic and realistic reversal of Defoe's domestic ideals. Mona Scheuermann treats Moll as a strategic business manager and notes Defoe's "obvious pleasure in this female character's financial dealings" (239). From within the legal discourse and trial narratives of the period, John P. Zomchick looks at Moll's limited options and subjectification with regard to "normative female behavior" (548) in and out of the court room. Critics have treated many areas of Moll's feminine societal experience, yet more opportunities will no doubt arise in feminist studies distinguishing the social significance of Defoe's novel. I have endeavored to provide a thorough overview of current trends in criticism on Defoe's Moll Flanders. Potential further development in the field presents itself in several forms: First, the establishment of a definitive scholarly edition of Moll Flanders would enhance all future work on the novel. From the material I have presented, it is apparent that feminist criticism has produced some useful analyses of the novel. I do not feel that the applications of various feminist approaches have been exhausted. One area that suggests itself is examination of Moll's use of language, verbal and written. Moll utilizes letter writing many times in the novel. These communications along with occasions of actual speech deserve closer examination. Perhaps, a connection with the educational experience in the Colchester home as well as Defoe's thoughts on women's education would aid in discovering the significance and strategies of Moll's rhetorical skill. Many scholars have touched on Defoe's pro-colonial propaganda in Moll Flanders, but I think the combination of Defoe and colonization merits more attention. Post-colonial critical approaches could certainly find a place in discussions of this novel. From all indications, Defoe approved of colonial settlement for the economic improvement of England, secondarily for the new opportunities for failed individuals from the parent country. Is Defoe's viewpoint actually summed up so simply? How did his writing reflect or influence the opinions of his audience? Moll's associations with America involve corruption and incest, from which she flees and later embraces. She gains success in America only to return to England to spend her last years. Is this how Defoe depicts the correct approach to colonial existence? What further implications are there in the colonial experiences presented in Moll Flanders? The addressing of these questions involving feminist and post-colonial studies will likely yield enriching scholarship in the criticism of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders. Bibliography of Recent Criticism on Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders The majority of critical works cited span the years 1983 to 1993; however, some earlier works which remain integral to more recent debates have been included. The editions cited are based on the original 1722 edition, which is the most accurate text available, pending the establishment of a truly definitive text. Beneath each heading critical books are followed by critical articles. -*Editions Defoe, Daniel. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders. 1722. Ed. and Intro. David Blewett. London: Penguin Books, 1989.   Explanatory notes, maps, and Defoe chronology. J Defoe, Daniel. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders. 1722. Ed. and Intro. G. A. Starr. Oxford English Novels. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.   Explanatory notes, selected bibliography of early twentieth-century criticism, chronology. J    J Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. Ed. and Intro. J. Paul Hunter. The Crowell Critical Library. New York: Y. Crowell Co., 1970.   Excerpts of nineteenth- and twentieth-century criticism, selected bibliography of criticism. J Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders, An Authoritative Text: Backgrounds and Sources; Criticism. Ed. Edward Kelly. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc., 1973.   Excerpts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century criticism as well as early twentieth-century criticism. Extensive bibliography of criticism. J   BiographyBackscheider, Paula R. Daniel Defoe, His Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.   A comprehensive biography with useful background on matters relevant to Moll Flanders, such as Defoe's Newgate experiences, his attitude toward the colonies, his impressions of social alienation, and his interest in contemporary criminal figures. Indexed with exhaustive bibliography of Defoe's works, as well as a bibliography of critical resources. J Critical Study Backscheider, Paula R. Moll Flanders: The Making of a Criminal Mind. Twayne's Masterwork Studies 48. Boston: Twayne Publishers-G. K. Hall & Co., 1990.   Offers an overview of historical background and critical reception. Provides a reading that incorporates many previous readings and focuses on Defoe's combination of criminal biography and romance tradition, yet offers some new elements. Especially of note is the chapter on Defoe's prose style, concentrating on its efficience, realistic character, and oral quality. J    J Historical Birdsall, Virginia Ogden. Defoe's Perpetual Seekers, a Study of the Major Fiction. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1985.   Examines Defoe's fiction as influenced by Hobbes and Rochester. Views Defoe's work as an important precursor to nineteenth-century naturalism. Follow Moll's operations in a predatory world, in which, ironically, she becomes "subhuman" while attempting to become "superhuman." J Erickson, Robert A. Mother Midnight: Birth, Sex, and Fate in Eighteenth Century Fiction (Defoe, Richardson, and Sterne). New York, A. M. S. Press, Inc., 1986.   Traces the relationship between midwifery and thievery in Moll Flanders, with concentrations on the underworld lore of the midwife as a series of skilled techniques and an art of life-giving. Examines several mother figures, especially Moll's "governess," who play a strong role in determining her fate, and Moll's inheritance as mother of her own final destiny. J    J Novak, Maximillian E. Economics and the Fiction of Daniel Defoe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.   Studies the economic courtship and colonial propaganda of Moll Flanders, viewing Defoe's writing as a precursor to the modern social novel. J Rietz, John. "Criminal Ms-Representation: Moll Flanders and Female Criminal Biography." Studies in the Novel 23 (1991): 183-95.   Draws upon conventions of other contemporary women's criminal biographies to propose that Moll Flanders, a character who defies consistent social and sexual categorization, is a very realistic personification of the female criminal. J   ̝ J -(Philosophical Starr, G. A. Defoe and Casuistry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.   Examines Moll's character in the context of casuist philosophy. As Moll's transgressions of conscience are qualified by circumstances, she becomes alternately "reprehensible" and sympathetic. J    J Narrative Technique Blewett, David. Defoe's Art of Fiction: Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and Roxana. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.   Discovers a complex structure of unifying elements, especially the theme of appearance versus deception, in what he considers Defoe's carefully planned fiction. J Boardman, Michael M. Defoe and the Uses of Narrative. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983.   Devotes the greater part of a chapter to Moll Flanders as a "fictional refinement of memoirs" outside of the traditional novel genre and defines Defoe's approach as that of an ideologically detached narrator who allows his characters to create their own belief systems. J Faller, Lincoln B. Crime and Defoe, a New Kind of Writing. Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought 16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.   Proposes that the audience becomes "disaffiliated" with the crime in Moll Flanders. Thorough and interesting treatment of the episode with the mercer and journeyman, during which Moll is wrongfully arrested. Examination of dialogue and "trialogue" in the novel. J    J Novak, Maximillian E. Realism, Myth, and History in Defoe's Fiction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.   Credits Defoe for complex narrative strategies, focusing on ambiguous and ironic language and grammatical manipulations involving tense and time. J Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.   Discusses, with emphasis on Moll Flanders, Defoe's contribution to the genre of novel. Highlights Defoe's verisimilitude in scene creation and his treatment of individualism. Cites short-comings in consistency of plot and approach and suggests biographical and historical explanations for these weaknesses. J Spiritual Sim, Stuart. Negotiations with Paradox: Narrative Practice and Narrative Form in Bunyan and Defoe. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.   Treating Moll Flanders as a Calvinist spiritual autobiography, Sims sees Defoe subversively probing an ideology, which, within the deterministic society in which Moll exists, forces her paradoxically into sinning and being held responsible for her sinful acts of necessity. J Starr. G. A. Defoe and Spiritual Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.   Argues that the narrative of Moll Flanders achieves coherence through a consistent and progressive spiritual decay, a series of "abortive" repentances and spiritual hardening that places the final genuine penitence in relief. J Miller, Henry Knight. "Some Reflections on Defoe's Moll Flanders and the Romance Tradition." Greene Centennial Studies: Essays Presented to Donald Greene in the Centennial Year of the University of Southern California. Eds. Paul Korshin and Robert R. Allen. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1984. 72-92.   Places Moll Flanders in the context of Christian romance tradition. Looks beyond the episodic nature of the narrative to focus on the soul's journey through several specific stages to redemption. J   Socio-political Identity Kay, Carol. Political Constructions: Defoe, Richardson, and Sterne in Relation to Hobbes, Hume, and Burke. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.   Approaches the novel as Moll's attempt to gain power and political status. In relation to Hobbes' philosophy, Moll seeks an authoritative position as counselor. J Trotter, David. Circulation: Defoe, Dickens, and the Economies of the Novel. Language, Discourse, Society. London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1988.   Discusses Moll's successful and unsuccessful economic behaviors as a struggle to achieve individualism. JތButler, Mary. "'Onomaphobia' and Personal Identity in Moll Flanders." Studies in the Novel 22 (1990): 377-91.   Explores Moll's use of personal definition by social role rather than personal name and argues that Moll is preoccupied with determining the degree of continuity through time of one's personal identity. J Richetti, John. "The Novel and Society: The Case of Daniel Defoe." The Idea of the Novel in the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Robert W. Uphaus. Studies in Literature, 1500-1800 3. East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, Inc., 1988. 47-66.   A useful examination of Moll's Newgate experience as a resolution of what Richetti terms "social totality" as Moll reinvents her role as an individual within an institutionally driven and defined society. J    J Marxist/Feminist Flynn, Carol Houlihan. The Body in Swift and Defoe. Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.   Examines Moll's sexuality/body as "matter in the way," a force of irreconcilable desires that is made grotesque in capitalistic society. J Chaber, Lois. "Matriarchal Mirror: Women and Capital in Moll Flanders." PMLA 97 (1982): 212-26.   Employs feminist and Marxist approaches to discuss Moll as victim and entrepreneur in a patriarchal capitalist system. Discusses Moll's three matriarchal models of "economic woman," her biological mother, nurse, and governess. J    J Pollack, Ellen. "Moll Flanders, Incest, and the Structure or Exchange." The Eighteenth Century 30 (1989): 3-21.   Argues that Moll's incestuous marriage functions as a limited undermining of patriarchal systems of sexual/economic exchange. J Feminist Flynn, Carol Houlihan. "Defoe's Idea of Conduct: Ideological Fictions and Fictional Reality." The Ideology of Conduct: Essays on Literature and the History of Sexuality. Eds. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse. Essays in Literature and Society. New York: Methuen, 1987. 73-95.   Places Moll Flanders against the context of Defoe's writings on conduct. Suggests that Moll represents a comedic and realistic undermining of the "imaginary" idealized domestic design of Defoe. J Richetti, John. "The Family, Sex, and Marriage in Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana." Studies in the Literary Imagination 15 (1982): 19-35.   With reference to Defoe's conduct writings, Richetti locates Moll Flanders as a venture in feminist anti-institutionalism occasioned by Defoe's repulsion to and fascination with a "wayward sexual individualism that is ignorant of moral institutions." J Scheuermann, Mona. "An Income of One's Own: Women and Money in Moll Flanders and Roxana." Durham University Journal 80 (1988): 225-39.   Focuses on Moll as a precise financial manager. Points out that this capability in women of the period should not be surprising and is present in much of the literature of the time. J Zomchick, John P. "'A Penetration Which Nothing Can Deceive': Gender and Juridical Discourse in Some Eighteenth-Century Narratives." S E L: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 29 (1989): 535-61.   Constructs Moll as a subject who is "created and recreated by juridical structures that offer her a choice between two forms subjection"--subjection to a husband in the private sphere or the "juridical authority" of the larger public sphere.