Moll Flanders Character Analysis

Are female characters equal to male characters in 18th century novel ‘’Moll Flanders’’ It is a well-known fact that 18th century in England is called as” the Classical Age” in Literature. According to studies this period is called as “the Classical Age” because of the fact that authors and poets re-established, in other words polished the rules and the disciplines of Classical Age writers such as Horace and Aristotle. Besides, another important improvement in this era was that people began to think they could acquire information by their own reason, and so on the historians and critics called this period as the “Age of Reason”. However, there was a huge conflict between the supporters of Classicism and the adherents of Reasons

Besides, Samuel Richardson with his work “Pamela”, Lawrence Sterne with his work “Tristram Shandy”, was the other famous writers of 18th century. However, in this paper, it is focused on Daniel Defoe as he is the writer of Moll Flanders which is commonly accepted as the first novel of British people. As different from his pioneers, Defoe used a woman in his work as a protagonist known as Moll Flanders. Briefly, in his novel, Defoe mentioned about Moll Flanders who is the protagonist, a beautiful, attractive, capable woman. She was born in Newgate prison. She stayed with her mother until her mother exiled then she was given to a family to be grown up as a servant, however, she didn’t want to be a servant but a gentlewoman. It can easily understood from this quotation told by Moll Flanders “ I thought it was fine to be a gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of a gentlewoman now than I had before; and as I thought, I say, that it was fine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be among gentlewomen, and therefore I longed to be there again.” (Defoe,49). She had five marriages even with her brother and too many sex out of wedlock. As a result, she had too many difficulties during her life. Finally the