I was now as above, left loose to the world, and being still young and handsome, as every body said of me, and I assure you, I thought my self so, and with a tolerable fortune in my pocket, I put no small value upon my self: I was courted by several very considerable tradesmen, and particularly, very warmly by one, a linnen-draper, at whose house after my husband's death I took a lodging, his sister being my acquaintance; here I had all the liberty, and all the opportunity to be gay, and appear in company that I could desire; my landlord's sister being on of the madest, gayest things alive, and not so much mistress of her virtue, as I thought at first she had been: she brought me into a world of wild company, and even brought home several persons, such as she lik'd well enough to gratifie, to see her pretty widow, so she was pleas'd to call me, and that name I got in a little time in publick; now as fame and fools make an assembly, I was here wonderfully caress'd; had abundance of admirers, and such as call'd themselves lovers; but I found not one fair proposal among them all; as for their common design, that I understood too well to be drawn into any more snares of that kind: the case was alter'd with me, I had money in my pocket, and had nothing to say to them: I had been trick'd once by that cheat call'd LOVE, but the game was over; I was resolv'd now to be married, or nothing, and be well married, or not at all" (Defoe, Moll Flanders, Broadview Editions, 2005, 90-91).Written in 1722, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe combines satire and realism, with a dash of taboo and criminality into the character Moll Flanders. An unreliable narrator, audiences cannot follow Moll's movements, which she often refers to as her demise, we must rely on her capacity to tell the truth. Prefacing the novel as a fictional-biography, Defoe often leads the reader to doubt that the novel is indeed fictional, and to believe Moll's escapades to be truths, by utilizing the words "biography" or "accounts" intermittently. Moll's veiled language is used to protect the innocence of the audience and at the same time gratify peaks of curiosity through causal form and words. In a close reading of the paragraph cited above, Moll describes the beginning of her 'conduct,' which left behind the innocence of her childhood.
The language in the paragraph is lewdly suggestive, and even at times appears as two word at once in its misspelling, which may or may not be determined by the character's education or the time period the piece was written given the progression of the English language. Such words linked by Moll's vanity in italics, are "gratifie" and her references to her new-found liberty from marriage, lovers and her reference to her "case." In the paragraph, Moll refers to her landlord's sister "gratifie[ing]" her as a "pretty widow;" reminiscent to Chaucer's "Wife of Bath" in which the woman is a widow having married five times and is not short of suitors. "[G]ratifie" is often used by Moll, which suggests to "gratify" or to "graffiti;" the landlord's sister is simultaneously gratifying and slurring/advertising Moll with the term. Moll's use of the term "liberty," while at the time liberty was mostly found by money through marriage and wholly uncommon in the dignified classes, has reference to more lewd acts without having "a burden of children" or "fear of one's husband and family." The term "lovers" comes across as more ambiguous, suggesting pre-marital sex by coining the phrase "common design." And lastly, by her reference of her "case," Moll suggests her "conduct" with her former husband's elder brother only became exasperated by her "conduct" while living with her landlord's sister.
During the beginning of her tale, Moll uses childhood innocence by her first love, her future husband's elder brother, who defaced her reputation. However, this affair was never revealed to the family. Had Moll decided to remain in the family after her husband's death or sought a different path, rather than be influence by the landlord's "madest, gayest" sister, Moll may have told an entirely different story.
Defoe's style in "Moll Flanders" is casual, using long sentences which span entire lengths of paragraphs bordering on prose. The one in this paragraph is informative, humorous and nostalgic. There is one period in the whole of it, at the very end, which suggests a breathy rush of the speaker, as if the character is stepping back and recalling a good time in her life. The clauses are broken between fact and her feeling on the matter as seen in the lines: "I was courted by several very considerable tradesmen; and particularly, a very warmly one..."
The hidden meaning of the passage is bitter toward Moll's relationship with the family of her former husband. She refers to "LOVE," (capitalization suggests accusation), as "that cheat" and marriage as "the game." Her childhood in which she worked so hard to become a "gentlewoman," was betrayed by her love-affair with her husband's elder brother. Seeing herself freed by her husband's death, Moll protects herself from falling in love again - risking the label she privately used against herself as "whore" from going public. Yet, she still "courts" easily to gain financial gifts, and places "value" upon herself, implying she is in control - the commodity and the seller. Similarly, she uses the word "well" asserting her worth:"I was resov'd now to be married, or nothing, and to be well married, or not at all."
In the Preface, Defoe describes the story of Moll Flanders as a means of instruction for the public. The summation of Moll's life in the end reveals only a small amount of regret, stemming from her lost childhood innocence; however, her tone and language is primarily nostalgic regarding her "conduct." Her lost innocence may have began with her first husband's elder brother, but it certainly snowballed after her husband's death by becoming acquainted with her landlord's sister.
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