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The Incredible Journey of Moll Flanders Essay example

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The Incredible Journey of Moll Flanders

Abandoned by her mother at the age of six months Moll Flanders does not have any of the requirements expected for her life journey to be a very good one. Her first memory is that of "wandering among a crew of those people they call gypsies, or Egyptians;" (9). But already as a child of about eight or ten she is aware of herself as an individual ready to shape her own life: "...for alas! all I understood by being a gentlewoman was to be able to work for myself, and get enough to keep me without that terrible bugbear going to service..." (13).

Moll´s first very frightening experience is that of being "cast off the ship" when she is turned out of doors to the wide world before …show more content…

If Defoe read The Pilgrim´s Progress he may have adopted the way of thinking of life as a journey. Moll is not an allegory, but it is evident that in this novel we find the idea that by trying to influence your own life you arrive at different stations. It is also clear that life takes you to stations you did not plan to go to. Moll´s marriage to a draper turns out to be disastrous, as he wastes most of her money. Her life´s journey takes a sharp turn when she finds herself so desperate for money , that she becomes a whore. Her next marriage takes her on a real journey (to Virginia) where at first she is very happy indeed. But when she discovers that her mother-in-law is her natural mother she says that: " ... an odd and surprising event put an end to all that felicity in a moment, and rendered my condition the most uncomfortable, if not the most miserable, in the world." (93). Moll now proves herself to be a very strong person when she insists on leaving Virginia, as she cannot imagine going on living with her own brother.

Back in England she tries to set up a new life for herself. She lives for six years with a married man and then marries an Irishman who thinks she is a woman with a very great fortune. This man is the only one for whom she expresses real love, but both of them being poor, the marriage is

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