The Inner Quandary of Woman in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders

Abstract

Daniel Defoe is an enchanted incinerator of English literature sprung during the initial years of eighteenth century. His applauded Moll Flanders (1722) is professed as picaresque in literary vegetation. He has emotionally painted the commotion of a solitary, imprudent and prevalent female distinct against an inimical and droopy humanity. As a matter of datum, the female chief strolls into the alleyway of assorted catastrophes. She has borne the humanity either in an orthodox or warped mundane. All these archetypes of women have shed light in the fiction even before the initiation of feminist movements athwart the realm. These movements have engrossed the intellect of community and sedated as operational. At regular intervals, these have performed more elegant and redundant than being operative.

Moll Flanders is not a typical incarnation of feminist thoughts. It has never strained to sketch an itinerary for the relegated female personality to outshine her eccentricity. Yet, it is indubitably pro-woman and reconnoiters a female character with the reputation of protagonist. The farsighted image of woman with grander tenets of empathy and sympathy is blossomed. In the contemporary habitat, the novel may not seem like far-reaching as it pushes the female lead to imitate and regret with ceaseless kinks and contraventions. But the novelist is ahead of his epoch in aiding his female protagonist to gallop and endure the probabilities amidst dejection and misfortunes. Hence, the research ornate has through an endeavour to enchant the inner quandary of woman in a masculine captivated sophistication with reference to Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders.