DOCSLIB.ORG

Dissertation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Dissertation ABSTRACT Navigating Between Two Worlds: How Portrayals of the Americas in Eighteenth-Century Novels Influenced the British Identity Jennifer Aimee Mills, Ph.D. Chairperson: Kevin J. Gardner, Ph.D. In the early English novel British emigrants to the Americas occupied an ambivalent position within the empire; changed by the transatlantic ocean voyage and daily life in the colonies, colonists were distanced spatially and pragmatically from their fellow subjects who remained in England. Eighteenth- century novels often explore the implications to British society when characters migrate from Britain to the American colonies, are changed by their experiences and interactions there, and then return to England. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Female American published anonymously, and Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett each depict main characters who amalgamate traits in the Americas that the British had demarcated as separate and opposite, yet they always maintain a self-identity of a British citizen. Moll Flanders, Eliza Winkfield, and Obadiah Lismahago challenge and refine the construct of the British identity. The eponymous Moll Flanders becomes isolated from society as a result of the influence of the Americas on her life from before birth, making her a detached observer unable to fully integrate into English society. Moll learns in the Americas to create new identities for herself that enable her to prey upon society and avoid being known by anyone, including herself. The titular Female American is separated from both English and Native American society because of her dual heritage in both. She stands apart from each culture, able to judge both and to adopt the best features of each. Rejecting the British colonial practices as inherently destructive, Eliza forms a different model for the ideal civilization, though this involves withdrawing to a small society isolated from the rest of the world. Obadiah Lismahago, by contrast, attempts to rejoin British society, but the American taint has reduced his ability to operate in the civilized world. Though at first the other characters exclude him because of these oddities, his marginalization is partially mitigated—though never erased—by his marriage into the Bramble family. However, his union with the family marks them as now unlike their English compatriots and more American by the gifts he bestows upon them and the continuing influence his interactions with them will have. Navigating Between Two Worlds: How Portrayals of the Americas in Eighteenth- Century Novels Influenced the British Identity by Jennifer Aimee Mills, B.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ Kevin J. Gardner, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Daniel P. Walden, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Sarah K. Ford, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Lydia Grebenyova, Ph.D. ___________________________________ T. Michael Parrish, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School August 2011 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Aimee Mills All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments vi Dedication vii I. Introduction: Transforming the British Identity through the Americas 1 II. Transgressing the Boundaries: Shifting Identity in Moll Flanders 10 No Place to Belong 22 Ambiguous Identity 27 Significance of the Americas 29 The Criminal Element 32 Social Instability 35 Circumventing the System 42 Colliding Identities 45 Lost Identity 48 Social Hierarchy 52 Freedom from Restraints 59 Caliber of Character 65 Importance of the Americas 67 III. The Best of Both Worlds: The Birth of a New Identity in The Female American 59 Eliza’s British Identity 73 Source Usage 74 Superior Hybrid 77 Contemporaneous Depictions of American Indians 80 Social Integration 84 American Royalty 88 Right to Rule 90 The Ideal Briton 93 The Ideal Blend 95 Cultural Authority 97 Breaking Barriers 101 Justification by Conversion 105 Cannibals 108 The Island Retreat 112 Power Dynamics 117 The American Identity 121 The Role of the Americas 122 iv Depopulation of the Internal Empire 126 Transgressing Social Boundaries 136 The Scars of War 140 Identity Shifts 144 Loss of Self 149 The Body as Sign 154 Social Cannibalism 160 No Voice of his Own 170 Dinner and Entertainment 174 American Degeneracy 178 Physical Imbalance in the Americas 184 IV. Scars of the Americas: Shaping an Identity in Humphry Clinker 114 Depopulation of the Internal Empire 126 Transgressing Social Boundaries 136 The Scars of War 140 Identity Shifts 144 Loss of Self 149 The Body as Sign 154 Social Cannibalism 160 No Voice of his Own 170 Dinner and Entertainment 174 American Degeneracy 178 Physical Imbalance in the Americas 184 V. Conclusion: The Transatlantic Identity 197 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a pleasure to thank each of the members of my dissertation committee for their insights and their encouragement. In particular I am grateful for Dr. Kevin J. Gardner, who patiently answered my questions, provided wise counsel, and directed my work. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Baylor University English Department for giving me the opportunity to study at this institution and the Baylor University Graduate School for funding my studies. I am indebted to Moody Bible Institute for generously hiring me while I was still ABD and for the support of all my amazing colleagues there. Thanks to my family for their support every step of the way. vi DEDICATION For my family, with love vii CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Transforming the British Identity through the Americas Although other parts of the earth were equally uncharted, mysterious, and enticing to the British, only the Americas were designated the New World. The term suggests the endless possibilities that Europeans imagined for economic, political, religious, and social renewal. Sometimes imagined to be the site of the original Garden of Eden, sometimes represented as a fruitful or howling wilderness, the New World was a location for beginning de novo in many senses, and the British insisted upon this more frequently and fervently than in conjunction with other places around the globe. (Richard Frohock, Heroes of Empire 21) Facing the ontological void of the “empty continent,” the New World with vast tracts of “unclaimed” wilderness, the English felt strongly both the opportunity and the responsibility to inaugurate in this land an idealized civilization. They attempted to actualize widely divergent ideal societies in this new world, frequently frustrated by the failure of the actual colonies to embody these ideals. One crucial difficulty resulted from the tumultuous interstices between the ideal and the actual Americas. Any written version of a location necessarily reflects the constructed vision filtered through the author’s perceptions. Jeffrey Richards, in his study on eighteenth-century fictions depicting the Americas, argues, “the idea here is that America is a fiction, a shared rhetorical world 1 among persons both in and out of the land, and never exactly a fully concrete space that generates—in fiction—a reality that comports with the literal landscape” (Richards 501). Both the real and the rhetorical Americas powerfully influenced the British self-identity, moving British literature from primarily parochial or domestic literature to a consciousness of occupying a place in the center of an increasingly global empire. One result of this changing awareness is the number of texts that consider how this imperial center is infiltrated and altered by the British subject who is transculturated in the remote Americas and then returns to the British Isles. This raises the important question, recently considered by Jeffrey Richards, “How relevant, then, is nationality to literature set geographically?” (497).1 Transatlantic considerations of cultural interchange would suggest that because the criterion for establishing the “nationality” of an eighteenth-century novel, perforce, are inconsistent and frequently irrelevant, early novels should 1 A whole subset of related questions then arise: does the nationality of the text depend on the nationality of the author of the text, the characters in the text, the scenes within the text, or the immediate intended audience of the text? How do we quantify and prioritize these characteristics? What, then, is a British novel? More contentiously, what is an American novel before the Revolutionary War? These questions are framed using contemporary constructs— audiences today having very different understandings of geopolitical identities and also conceptions of the novel genre that are frequently anachronistic. Moll Flanders considers similar questions about variations of the British identity and how to communicate these ideas in the developing novel genre. 2 not be forced into anachronistic categories of English or American. Dividing texts into these binary categories forecloses the potential for productive dialogue and causes insights between and within texts to be overlooked. Fictive envisionings of the Americas often provide fascinating insights into cultural relationship, views that diverge widely and frequently remain amorphous conceptions that defy typography,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Documents Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages Completedocuments
    Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments “THE FATE OF THIS POOR WOMAN”: MEN, WOMEN, AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MOLL FLANDERS AND ROXANA A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Peter Christian Marbais May, 2005 Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments Dissertation written by Peter Christian Marbais B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1995 M.A., Kent State University, 1998 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2005 Approved by Vera J. Camden, Professor of English, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Donald M. Hassler, Professor of English, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Thomas J. Hines, Emeritus Professor of English Ute J. Dymon, Professor of Geography Accepted by Ronald J. Corthell, Chair, Department of English Darrell Turnidge, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments Click Here & Upgrade Expanded Features PDF Unlimited Pages CompleteDocuments TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………….…………………….........iv CHAPTER INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..……….1 I. DEFOE AND FATE…………………...………………………………………25 II. DEFOE’S WOMEN IN THE MYTHOS OF FATE AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY……………………………..………………...…….77 III. MUTUAL RECOGNITION WITHIN THE FATAL MATRIX AND BETWEEN
    [Show full text]
  • Representations of the Criminal in Eighteen-Century England Daniel Gonzalez Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected]
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 The culture of crime: representations of the criminal in eighteen-century England Daniel Gonzalez Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gonzalez, Daniel, "The culture of crime: representations of the criminal in eighteen-century England" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 112. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/112 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE CULTURE OF CRIME: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CRIMINAL IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English By Daniel Gonzalez B.A., Bucknell University, 1992 M.A., McNeese State University, 1995 M.F.A., McNeese State University, 1995 May 2002 Acknowledgments First, I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to my dissertation director, Dr. Jim Borck, for his continuing encouragement and friendship during this lengthy process. Dr. Elsie Michie has also been a strong voice of encouragement, and without the guidance and support of both of these mentors, this dissertation would never have been completed. When I grow up to be a professor, I want to be just like them; they have helped me more than either can ever know.
    [Show full text]
  • From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D'urbervilles
    From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Women, Autonomy and Criminal Responsibility in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England Nicola Lacey LSE Law, Society and Economy Working Papers 5/2007 London School of Economics and Political Science Law Department This paper can be downloaded without charge from LSE Law, Society and Economy Working Papers at: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/wps/wps.htm and the Social Science Research Network electronic library at: http://ssrn.comabstract=1012282 © Nicola Lacey. Users may download and/or print one copy to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. Users may not engage in further distribution of this material or use it for any profit-making activities or any other form of commercial gain. Nicola Lacey From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D’Urbervilles From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Women, Autonomy and Criminal Responsibility in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England Nicola Lacey∗ Abstract: In the early 18th Century, Daniel Defoe found it natural to write a novel whose heroine was a sexually adventurous, socially marginal property offender. Only half a century later, this would have been next to unthinkable. In this paper, the disappearance of Moll Flanders, and her supercession in the annals of literary female offenders by heroines like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, serves as a metaphor for fundamental changes in ideas of selfhood, gender and social order in 18th and 19th Century England. Drawing on law, literature, philosophy and social history, I argue that these broad changes underpinned a radical shift in mechanisms of responsibility-attribution, with decisive implications for the criminalisation of women.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &C
    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c., by Daniel Defoe This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. Author: Daniel Defoe Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #370] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLL FLANDERS *** The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and dies a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums … by Daniel Defoe 1 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the names and other circumstances of the person are concealed, and on this account we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own opinion upon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases. The author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in the very beginning of her account she gives the reasons why she thinks fit to conceal her true name, after which there is no occasion to say any more about that.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution Bernadette Meyler Cornell Law School, [email protected]
    Cornell University Law School Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository Cornell Law Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 11-2008 Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution Bernadette Meyler Cornell Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Legal History, Theory and Process Commons Recommended Citation Meyler, Bernadette, "Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution" (2008). Cornell Law Faculty Publications. Paper 18. http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DANIEL DEFOE AND THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION Bernadette Meylert INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 73 I. DEFOE AS MYrH-MAKER, COGNATE, AND PRECEDENT ...... 79 II. FROM THE PROMISE TO THE TEXT ........................... 85 A. A Serious Inquiry .................................... 86 B. Party-Tyranny........................................ 90 C. The Case of ProtestantDissenters ....................... 99 III. THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION IN MINIATURE .............. 106 A. Crusoe, Writing, and Contract ...................... 106 B. Pyrates, the Polity, and Constitutional Review ......
    [Show full text]
  • The Feminist Thoughts of Moll Flanders in Moll Flanders
    Journal of Literature and Art Studies, March 2015, Vol. 5, No. 3, 177-180 doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2015.03.003 D DAVID PUBLISHING The Feminist Thoughts of Moll Flanders in Moll Flanders LIU Xi, MA Wen-ying Changchun University, Changchun, China Moll Flanders is one of Daniel Defoe’s masterpieces. The protagonist—Moll Flanders is a female character from lower class that Daniel Defoe first depicted in his novel. The image of Moll Flanders has attracted the attention of many critics since it was created. Critics viewed her as a “whore”, because she had been married for five times in the comparatively conservative society. This paper attempts to analyze the feminist thoughts of the protagonist—Moll Flanders and makes an exploration upon Moll Flanders’ fate from the perspective of feminism so as to encourage females to pursue whatever they want in order to acquire equal rights with men. Keywords: feminism, resistance, equality, patriarchal society, pursuit Introduction Moll Flanders is one of the masterpieces written by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), the founder of the realistic novel. Compared with the contemporary writer, Defoe runs in front of the times by his female consciousness to protect women’s rights representatively at early times in England. In Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe portrayed an image of a woman named Moll Flanders. She was born in Newgate prison because her mother was a thief. Since her birth, she lost her parents and was brought up in an orphanage. Under the pressure of making a living, she got married for five times and she even gave up her self-esteem to be a mistress.
    [Show full text]
  • DAVID FULTON a Holiday from High Tone
    EnterText 1.2 DAVID FULTON A Holiday from High Tone: Politics and Genre in Andrew Davies’s Adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders When Granada commissioned Andrew Davies to adapt Moll Flanders, they were consciously engaging in an act of TV politics, designed to counter recent BBC successes.1 That latter organisation had long stood accused of reneging on its public- service obligations and, in an attempt to compete for audience figures with ITV, of dumbing down its programmes. One of its responses was to reassert its commitment to David Fulton: A Holiday from High Tone 132 EnterText 1.2 literary culture and it did this primarily by revamping a genre that had served it well in the 1960s: the classic serial. Black-and-white was to be replaced by colour, unconvincing studio sets by outside locations, shot according to the big-budget production values of cinema, and self-financed serials by ones co-funded by foreign— usually American—TV companies. The first of the new brand of adaptations to catch the popular imagination was Dennis Potter’s version of Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), filmed on location in Corfe Castle for the then-massive TV budget of over half a million pounds and starring Alan Bates as the Lear-like protagonist.2 However, this popular success was itself eclipsed by two BBC adaptations of the mid- 1990s—of George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1994) and, pre-eminently, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1995). The romance of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet gained such currency it found its way into the tabloids, especially after it was rumoured the actors playing the parts, Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle had themselves begun an affair during the serial’s shooting.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Huddersfield Repository
    University of Huddersfield Repository Muller, Andreas Karl Ewald The public voices of Daniel Defoe Original Citation Muller, Andreas Karl Ewald (2005) The public voices of Daniel Defoe. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/9142/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ The Public Voices of Daniel Defoe by Andreas Karl Ewald Müller Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Huddersfield March 2005 Contents Page Acknowledgements i Note on text i Abstract ii Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 `Exchanging for Chapter I one Tyrant Three hundred' - Defoe 22 and the Standing Army Controversy, 1697-99' Chapter
    [Show full text]
  • Colonel Jack, Moll Flanders, Captain Singleton, the Fortunate Mistress
    THE MORAL PDEPOSS OJ B3F0S'3 KOKJE HISTORIES: COLONEL JACK, MOLL FIANDHSS, CAFTAIE SINGLETON, THS FOETOTATE MISIREES (EOX^IIA) by CLAYTON LOUIS KAUPP B, A., Fort Kays Kansas Stats College, A MASTER'S REPORT submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS Deparfensnt of English KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 19S3 Approved by; ^ZZILk- Major Professor TABLE OF CONTESTS 1 I. THE NATURE OF GENTILITY A. Illustrated by Singleton's African gentleman B. Discovered by the rogues C. Differentiated from aristocracy D. Misrepresented by certain types 1, Tradesman-sportsman 2, Gentleman thief E. Embodied by various occupations 1. True-bred merchant 2. Gentleman soldier 3. Gentleman planter F. Defined primarily as economic security II. THE PREREQUISITES TO ATTAINMENT OF THE STATUS (THE NECESSARY "ECONOMIC VIRTUES") 10 A. Honesty B, Gratitude C. Utility D. Courage E, Meroy 1. Reform, the outgrowth of mercy 2. Gentility, the result of reform F, Consciousness and selflessness III. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES 26 A. Suitable appearance B. Genteel attainments C. Marital bliss IV. DANGERS OF SECONDARY OBJECTIVES 29 A.. Marital excess B. Dueling C. Tihoring D. "Fooling and toying" E. Luxury F. Private ventures on foreign soils G. Drinking V. THE IDEAL BEGINNING FOE VSOULD-BE GENTILITY 39 (Attainment of genteel status fe.g., Moll, Jack, and BobJ and °voidance of common errors fe.g., Bobj was possible without a suitable education. However, the rogues 1 lives were not a desirable pattern.) A, Practical education 1. For women also 2. About value of money 3. About one f s expectations 4. For self control B, Spiritual education (to develop awareness of Providential intervention) 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impact of Colonialism in Moll Flanders and the Belle's Stratagem
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations and Theses City College of New York 2015 The Impact of Colonialism in Moll Flanders and The Belle’s Stratagem Tamara Kathwari CUNY City College of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/531 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Kathwari 1 The Impact of Colonialism in Moll Flanders and The Belle’s Stratagem Tamara Kathwari Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the City College of New York of the City University of New York Kathwari 2 Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Desire, Disguise, and Identity: The Impact of Colonialism in Moll Flanders Section 1. Paper Credit and the Problem of Social Identity Section 2 The Master- Slave Relationship and Disguise Section 3 Virginia and Economic Security Section 4 Easy Wealth, Disastrous Investments, and Promising Prospects Section 5 Escaping Crime and Servitude: Life in a Colony Chapter 2. Colonialism and The Crisis of National Identity in The Belle’s Stratagem Section 1 Colonialism and The Marriage Act of 1753 Section 2 Social Mimicry, Colonial Influence, and National Identity Section 3 Anxiety and Loss over Colonial Wealth Section 4 Transformation and the Crisis of Identity Kathwari 3 Introduction He who has sovereign power does not value the provocations of a rebellious subject but knows how to subdue him with ease and will make himself obeyed; but patience and submission are the only comforts that are left to a poor people who groan under tyranny unless they are strong enough to break the yoke, to depose and abdicate, which I doubt would not be allowed of here.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Compare and Contrast the Importance of Female Morality In
    Compare and contrast the importance of female morality in Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel Moll Flanders and Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871. Examine the view that church, state and “men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it.”(3) Emmeline Pankhurst Throughout Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722) and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871), female morality and its cultural importance in dictating the behaviour of the characters is a major theme which features continually. Emmeline Pankhurst’s statement “men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it” (3) also plays a relevant role in both texts and expresses a historic social standard for women; unchanging between these periods. Whether it is conveyed through religious influence, class stratification or male power in business and marriage, the rigid female moral code described in both novels has been created by these factors. Although writing a hundred years apart, Defoe’s and Eliot’s description of women’s moral behaviour and position in society is surprisingly consistent, but the characters they use to describe moral aspects of life are very different. It could be argued both authors allow their protagonists, Moll and Dorothea, to attempt to escape society’s expectation of female behaviour but they choose to introduce the struggle of female morality in contrasting manners. From the beginning of Middlemarch, religious vigour and moral virtues are deeply rooted in the character of Dorothea and influence her conduct in many ways. She is initially shown to have “a pure beauty supported by her plain dressing and garments” perhaps resembling “the Blessed Virgin” (4).
    [Show full text]
  • Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 Pm Page 1
    NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 1 Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders CLASSIC Read by Heather Bell FICTION 3 Compact discs NA337212 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 2 CD 1 1 My true name is well known in the records 6:06 2 When I was 14 my old nurse died 8:09 3 The younger brother falls to work with me 3:59 4 One brother prevails upon me to marry the other 6:45 5 With reluctance, I agree 6:34 6 A widow – left loose to the world 5:34 7 Alone again – but in lessened circumstances 7:44 8 A new, kindly husband 3:56 9 We arrived in York River in Virginia 5:52 10 The revelation destroys the marriage 6:09 11 At last I resolved to tell him of it myself 4:30 12 Return to England 7:49 13 A new liaison in Bath 5:30 Total time on CD 1: 78:50 2 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 3 CD 2 1 Abandoned again 4:08 2 Taking stock – approaching poverty 4:50 3 At the bank – a sympathetic ear 6:48 4 Travelling North – a wild marriage 7:02 5 Financial reality and a final fling 5:40 6 Another parting and another child 6:34 7 Birth and fostering 4:56 8 A new affair 5:54 9 Marriage – again 6:16 10 Widowhood, poverty and a new career 7:06 11 Moll reflects on her first felony 6:33 12 Moll learns her dangerous trade 5:57 13 The last and fateful theft 7:20 Total time on CD 2: 79:21 3 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 4 CD 3 1 A husband reappears 5:51 2 Trial – and a plea for mercy 4:38 3 The sentence is proclaimed 5:46 4 Moll reveals herself to her husband 5:42 5 Bound for Virginia again 5:20 6 Inquiries for my family 6:05 7 Uncertainties 6:03 8 Settling in – and a tender reunion 6:15 9 Arranging affairs with my son 5:50 10 A steady life and old age – at last 6:12 Total time on CD 3: 57:55 Total time on CDs 1-3: 3:36:06 4 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 5 Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe, born in London in 1660, lived whore, she turns to crime, but is eventually an extraordinarily varied and interesting life.
    [Show full text]