Moll Flanders

Main Ideas

• The transformation of a human destiny in the whirlpool of social trials, where the heroine, like a ship in a storm, seeks refuge between poverty and wealth, virtue and vice.
• An exploration of female independence and survival in a harsh male world, where every mistake brings fatal danger and every stroke of luck is a fragile hope for salvation.
• Moral ambiguity: Defoe masterfully blurs the lines between good and evil, allowing the reader to see how circumstances and need can turn even a virtuous soul into a criminal.
• The theme of repentance and redemption, where the path to forgiveness lies through suffering, inner turmoil, and the recognition of one’s own guilt.
• A social critique of eighteenth-century English society, where laws and morals are relentless to those cast aside, and survival demands cunning, ingenuity, and courage.