Journalism, Society, and Morality in 18th-Century England
The Rise of Journalism
18th Century: Origin of Modern-Day Journalism
Richard Steele and Joseph Addison were forerunners of modern newspapers and magazines.
Most novelists of the era started their careers as journalists.
The rise of journalism reflected a greater interest in contemporary reality.
The genre of periodical essays anticipated the editorials of our modern-day newspapers.
Consequences:
- Increasing interest in reading
- Establishment of circulating libraries
- Main new readers: prosperous middle classes
- Booksellers achieved high financial standing
Writer’s Objective:
- Write explicitly (so that uneducated readers could understand)
- Write quickly and copiously (to earn money)
The Concept of Gentleman/Gentlewoman
Moll Flanders is the first English literature novel with a low-class woman protagonist in a society dominated by gentry morality.
Moll wants to be a gentlewoman, associating the term with attributes such as independence and self-support.
That is not what is defined by the gentry of that society. Although she is confused, she fulfills her own ideal.
Defoe makes a distinction between a gentleman by birth and by breeding or education.
Marriage and Money
Men and women (especially from the gentry) were raised learning that a good marriage was prestigious and economically advantageous.
That type of money is what can provide security, so arranged marriages were very common.
Chastity and Gentlewomen
Gentlewomen weren’t supposed to have sexual encounters until marriage (distinction between wife and mistress/whore).
Gentlemen weren’t supposed to have extramarital sexual encounters with respectable women.
Major Themes in Moll Flanders
Greed (Codicia)
Greed leads Moll to prostitution, thievery, and moral disintegration.
People as commodities: relationships with them become business transactions.
- When in love with the eldest brother, she doesn’t mind taking money from him.
- She accepts a bribe to marry Robin (the younger brother).
She chooses husbands based on wealth and social class, directly recording her business transactions.
She provides details about her financial standing but not about her inner life.
Vanity (Soberbia/Orgullo)
Vanity is the force that prevails over virtue:
- It determines Moll’s behavior.
- It facilitates seduction.
- It dominates Moll’s marriages.
- It encourages her to steal, rather than to earn a living by the work of her needle.
Repentance (Arrepentimiento)
Moll constantly entertains the desire to repent. However, lacking true moral persuasion, these repentances are insincere. She lacks moral strength, making them easy to break with a bit of pressure or inducement. Her first repentance occurs when Robin asks her to marry him:
“I was now in a dreadful condition indeed, and now I repented heartily my easiness with the eldest brother; not from any reflection of conscience, for I was a stranger to those things, but I could not think of being a whore to one brother and a wife to the other.”
Moll’s repentance seems more like regret for having underestimated her chances for a better arrangement (in this case, marriage).
Plot Order
Born in Newgate Prison, Moll’s mother is transported to America. Moll is abandoned and raised by gypsies. She is then taken up by town magistrates of Colchester and brought up by a nurse. When the nurse dies, Moll, at 14 years old, goes to live with one of the wealthy families that supported her. She marries Robin after a complicated situation. Robin dies, and she becomes a widow. She then marries a draper, but things go awry. Later, she marries a man who turns out to be her half-brother. They depart for America, where she reunites with her mother, and everything becomes a disaster. She returns to London and marries again, this time to a wealthy man who frequents a place to find lovers. His wife is mentally unstable. Initially reluctant to take his money, she eventually benefits when he experiences a “distemper” and leaves her.