Moll Flanders Essay Research Paper The Role

Moll Flanders Essay, Research Paper

The Role of Motherhood in Moll Flanders

In Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, there is no true development of maternal feelings over the course of the novel. At times throughout the story, what appear to be maternal feelings are really overshadowed by either guilt or a hidden motive. It is quite evident that Defoe is out to show that maternal feelings in Moll’s orbit were not very strong, as can be seen in the many “mothers” that come into play throughout the novel. Moll’s guilt and discomfort seem to be what save her children each time. We never see the “unconditional love” of a mother with child that many authors have shown in their novels. Instead, we see a conditional love, which is dependent on wealth and security.

Moll and Robin, Moll’s first husband, were married for five years, until Robin’s death; Moll had two children by him. She never really loved him, and never ceased longing for his older brother. However, she still had children with him. It seems that her lack of feelings for her husband were also similar to her feelings about the product between them (the children), because after her husband dies, the Mayor and his lady eventually “took the children off [Moll's] hands, leaving [her] a pretty widow with 1200 guineas.” If Moll had any attachment to these children, she would have thought of ways to continue to raise them. She did have 1200 guineas, and it took only 5 guineas a year to support them. Instead, she took the easy way out and gave the children away, due to her lack of feelings for them and the fact that she was trying to be remarried. Moll passes over certain periods very quickly: the five years of her marriage take less than a page to describe, and the description of the situation with her children is only a few sentences. We never really hear about her children, or what childbirth was like, or anything domestic. Moll’s lack of attachment to her children is rather striking: it appears that children are only an unwanted charge for an attractive widow with no steady income. She is, however, careful to find homes for them, which show that there are at least some basic human feelings of guilt.

Later in the novel, after Moll marries again, the details of her mother-in-law’s story convinced Moll, to her horror, that her mother-in-law is also her true mother. Her maternal feelings for her children were slighted by the fact that their father was her brother. Moll had by this time had two children by her own brother, and was pregnant with a third. She did not tell anyone of her horrible discovery, but was terribly oppressed by it; also, she was afraid that if she told, she would be divorced without being believed, and left helpless far from her native land. Thus she lived for three more years, but without having any more children (she refused to sleep with her husband). Her relationship with him deteriorated drastically, and she requested to go to England. He was angry, and asked how she could stand to abandon her children (she did not want to see them ever again), and threatened to have her put in a madhouse. Finally she told him that she knew something which meant that their marriage was not lawful. This shows how she let her feelings about their marriage overpower her maternal feelings for her own children.

The mother of Moll and her brother also seems to be more motivated by regard for conventions than anything else: she would actually prefer to have her children continue cohabiting, than risk the scandal of separation. Also, she shows no joy upon the discovery of her long lost daughter, which is very strange. Thus Moll is motivated by a sort of instinctive natural morality, her husband/brother by a more religious

sense of guilt and sacrifice, and their mother by a concern for keeping up appearances. Even in the short description of the feelings of the mother-in-law, Defoe shows once again how maternal feelings are easily overshadowed at this time in society. It would be interesting to know where Moll found out about her origins, given the fact that she ran away from the gypsies at the age of three. It hardly seems likely that at that age she would remember her mother’s fate and the crime for which she had been transported, her name, and so on. Defoe never explains this, probably for the good reason that he could not. Moll went on to have a relationship with the gentleman at Bath, who incidentally, was married, but his wife was insane, so Moll provided much-needed companionship. They lived together for six years, and Moll bore three children, but only the first one survived. Again, there is no real discussion about what her feelings were when she lost her first two children (if any). Again, here we can see that Moll’s maternal feelings have in no way evolved from the beginning of the novel.

With the dry romance that follows, Defoe mocks Moll’s lover’s lack of paternal feelings as well her own lack of maternal feelings. After Moll’s lover got ill and “repented” from his relationship with Moll, she asked him for 50 guineas to travel back to Virginia, and left him the child to bring up: though she was “very fond of the boy,” she was not sure she would be able to maintain him. His insistence on sleeping chastely in her bed to demonstrate his great respect for her virtue, and his coldness to her after his illness, deeply contrast with each other. A genuine attachment would not be