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Throughout the text of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, the
title character makes a distinction between her internal thoughts
and external actions. Moll demonstrates that in order to survive
and profit as a woman in a competitive capitalist economy, she
must perform various roles. The level of danger or potential for
profit manifest in any particular situation determines the extent
to which Moll dissembles herself. Often, the disguises are quite
literal and a consequence of Moll’s criminal life. For example,
she assumes a pseudonym in her relations with both her fellow
criminals and the readers of her history. She does so as a caution
against legal repercussions for her past criminal activities. The
impression-management related performances serve ends that are
more complex; they not only aid Moll’s devolution into
criminality, but also enable her to finally assimilate as a reformed
member of society. Moll’s ability to perform well serves the ends
of corruption, survival, and reformation. Therefore, Defoe
presents a version of salvation that is conscious and considerate
of the tenuous position of women and their need to perform
their circumscribed social roles, which may be vastly inconsistent
with the reality of their lives. In Moll Flanders, performance does
not necessarily imply immorality but rather demonstrates the
vulnerability of women’s social position and is employed as a
means for improving their circumstances.
Moll’s early management of a young lady’s response to a
courtship defines her attitude towards the need for women to
maintain a performed front regarding issues of their marital well
being. Moll demonstrates that performance is not only desirable,
but also indispensable if women are to be given anything near a
fair say in the circumstances of their lives. In order to aid the
woman, Moll slanders the reputation of the Captain who is
courting her advisee. She effectively lessens the marriageable
value of the captain because he refuses to assent to his love
interest’s inquiry into his circumstances. The captain thus
attempts to conceal his own personal circumstances and maintain
a dignified and secretive facade. Moll disrupts the Captain’s
pretentious engagement in his own performance and justifies this
slander by recourse to the social and economic circumstances of
women, which necessitate more defensive measures than are
essential to men. Moll comments on the lack of suitable male
mates and proceeds to the following conclusion:
But the consequence even of that too amounts to no
more than this; that Women ought to be the more Nice;
For how do we know the just Character of the Man that
makes the offer? To say, that the Woman should be the
more easie on this Occasion, is to say, we should be the
forwarder to venture, because of the greatness of the
Danger; which in my way of Reasoning is very absurd.
(Defoe 61)
Moll stresses that women should not be “ the forwarder to
venture” in issues of marriage because of their social handicap.
In other words, they should maintain a reserve about their
personal circumstances while being freely permitted to inquire
into their prospective partner’s situation. Interestingly, Moll uses
the term “venture,” which calls to mind the capitalist economy.
Moll equates the capitalist enterprise with obtaining a financially
and morally adequate mate. She claims that the scarcity of
marriageable males determines that females ought to be the more
scrupulous about the circumstances of their mates. Also, females
should be less willing to “venture” by revealing their true selves
and financial circumstances. Moll places females within the
system of capitalist trade and shows how, through performance,
females can play an active role in capitalism by regarding their
suitors as commodities. In order to invest soundly in their
futures, women must negotiate the marriage contract as a
merchant would a business contract.
The gendered necessity for performance is further shown
by the fact that Moll’s unburdening of her past life takes place
with Mother Midnight, another woman conscious of the need for
defensive performance and thus capable of being a confidante to
Moll. The confidence further shows that, in the text, women
need to delude men and the external world in order to be able to
preserve their hopes of financial autonomy. In order to remarry
and achieve financial security, Moll needs to conceal both her
marriage to Jem and her child. While observing Moll’s growing
distress over her situation, Mother Midnight senses Moll’s
reluctance to tell her everything and proceeds to persuade her.
Moll relates the incident: “but to conceal it, was to deprive myself
of all possible Help, or means of Help, and to deprive her of the
Opportunity of Serving me. In short, she had such a bewitching
Eloquence, and so great a power of Perswasion, that there was
no concealing any thing from her” (136). Mother Midnight uses
her own persuasiveness to elicit Moll’s confession. It is through
an expression of sympathy and the nature of Mother Midnight’s
work that Moll is tempted to be more candid. Mother Midnight’s
profession shows that women are constantly required to conceal
aspects of their lives in order to maintain the character of their
virtue. She is so “bewitching” to Moll because she is
representative of a complete understanding of and sympathy
towards Moll’s life, which has involved ceaseless disguises.
Mother Midnight’s pawnshop and midwifery are facades meant
respectively to launder merchandise obtained illegally or disguise
the identities of children conceived out of wedlock. Moll finds a
woman who thoroughly understands the need for secrecy. This
connection between women solidifies the sense that performance
is an adaptive mechanism that decreases the vulnerability of
women in a society in which illicit behavior can categorize them
as permanently ruined and thus unmarketable commodities.
Though Moll’s performances are partially transcended by
her contact with Mother Midnight and the consequent sincerity
about her past, she nonetheless maintains some aspect of
performing in all her relations until she is certain of her security.
Moll keeps the true nature of her relationship with Jem from
Mother Midnight and, in addition, conceals her marriage to her
brother from Jem himself. After being redeemed from her
criminal life, Moll is transported to the New World. One might
expect Moll’s conversion to entail a wholesale realignment of her
personality and an abjuration of her former performance-related
deceptiveness; however, Moll, in order to palliate her former life,
must sustain the various roles she has played all along. Namely,
she must preserve good terms with Jem to insure her security in
their marriage. When faced with the alternative of telling Jem
about her marriage to her living brother or not claiming her
inheritance, Moll is confounded: “Again, I could never so much
as think of breaking the Secret of my former Marriage to my
new Husband; It was not a Story, as I thought that would bear
telling, nor could I tell what might be the Consequences of it”
(Defoe 253). Moll feels that the consequences of telling the story
may threaten her well being. The necessity of performing even
to her fellow converted husband trumps any consideration of
openness or sincerity that may run parallel to Moll’s conversion.
In fact, Moll’s concealment involves a breach of a marriage
contract, which is contrary to notions of religious piety. Moll’s
conversion is thus given additional nuance by her feelings of
vulnerability that require the preservation of a facade. She does
not know that her story “would bear telling.” In other words,
Moll recognizes that even as a converted and assimilated member
of society, she must still assume that she will be censured and
endangered by the revelation of her past.
Though any consideration of Moll’s performances must
take into account much more than is discussed in this argument, a
final perspective on her performing can be gleaned by the novelending
interaction between her and Jem, which exemplifies her
regard for preserving her security above all other considerations.
Beginning the final paragraph of the text, Moll states: “It must be
observ’d, that when the old Wretch, my Brother (Husband) was
dead, I then freely gave my Husband an Account of all that
Affair, and of this Cousin, as I had call’d him before, being my
own Son by that mistaken unhappy Match” (Defoe 267). Moll
feels safe to confide the truth of her past only when any threat of
repercussion has significantly diminished. The death of her
brother insures that she is no longer engaged in adulterous and
bigamous actions with Jem. The latter responds that he would
have been satisfied with the knowledge even if her brother had
still been living. Moll’s final performance is thus proven
unnecessary by the sympathy of Jem. Jem validates Moll’s actions
in the event and denounces only her brother for insisting on
maintaining the relationship after the revelation of their kinship.
Significantly, the novel ends on the necessity for performance
dissolving into an accepting and sincere union between Moll and
Jem. The care taken by Moll throughout the novel is at last
shown to be superfluous with Jem, who, though not a female, had
led a life similarly capable of being labeled immoral. He, too, has
engaged in performances to further his criminal activities and is
thus capable of sympathizing effectively with Moll’s clandestine
life. Moll’s conversion is punctuated by the final realization that
she can be herself completely for perhaps the first time in the
novel.
Though the reader must suspend judgment of Moll’s
actions in order to fully appreciate the vulnerability of her
position, it is evident that Defoe uses the sordidness of Moll’s
reprobate life to contrast with the purity of her redeemed life.
That both her lives share the performative aspect indicates
Defoe’s lingering concern for the place of women in society and
the means by which they can achieve autonomy and
respectability. Performance is not wholly relegated to the realm
of deception and subterfuge but also plays a significant role in
Moll’s insuring that she can maintain her redeemed life. If Moll
were to be abandoned by Jem at the novel’s end, her security
would once again be threatened. A lack of security is exactly
what precipitates Moll into promiscuity and crime; thus,
maintaining financial security is a necessary component of Moll’s
loyalty to her reformed ways. The capitalist context of the novel
is not conducive to impoverished redemption; only financially
secure individuals can maintain their repentance. As Moll states,
her past wicked life seemed most reprehensible when she had “a
Sense upon [her] of Providence doing good to [her]” (Defoe
263). Thus, Moll recognizes that the strength of her repentance
is contingent on her financial security.
Works Cited
Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. New York and London: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2004. |