On Morality of Moll Flanders

Yue Zhang

doi:10.54691/bcpssh.v19i.1727

Authors

Yue Zhang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/bcpssh.v19i.1727

Keywords:

Moll Flanders, Morality, Survival, Desire, Sin

Abstract

Moll Flanders is a representative work of the famous 18th century British novelist Daniel Defoe, which depicts the sinful life of the protagonist Moll Flanders with a self-reported tone: a female at the bottom of society marries and steals frequently for survival. This novel not only reflects Moll’s complex and multidimensional morality, but also shows her fights between morality and survival, morality and desire as well as morality and sin: putting the interests of survival first; putting the real existence of the individual in the first place and understanding releasing personal desires but indulging in them; achieving the awakening of conscience by repentance. By revealing Moll’s morality, this paper aims to show that the pleasure brought by carnal and material desires is temporary and sinful, and only the pursuit of goodness and virtue can make people spiritually rich.

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