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Defoe's "Almost Invisible Hand": Narrative Logic as a Structuring Principle in Moll Flanders Carl R. Lovitt

The Problem of External Authority

M any of the critical disagreements about Moll Flanders have hinged on questions of external authority: the extent to which external

control over the narrative can be reliably inferred from the text. Argu- ments about Defoe's irony and about the novel's aesthetic structure-- both of which presuppose external agency-have dominated discussions of Moll Flanders. The persistent concern with these issues can be at- tributed in large part to a problem that confronts readers of any fictional first-person narrative. According to Ian Watt, when we are "entirely limited to what the main character tells us," any attempt to "derive final values and meanings from a work of fiction" presents itself as a "difficult epistemol&ical problem.'" Readers who hesitate to endorse Moll's own moral judgments will nevertheless "find it impossible to infer other more satisfactory standards of judgment from the narrative itself.'' Wayne Booth concurs: "It would be a clever reader indeed who could be sure just how much of Moll's behavior is consciously judged and repudiated by D e f ~ . " ~ Although Ian Watt is widely credited with having drawn attention to the question of irony in Moll Flanders, his sense of the im- possibility of reliably inferring an external standard eventually led him to

1 Ian WaU, "The Recent Critical Formnes of Moll Flanders," Eighteenth-Cenrwy Studies 1 (1967). 120.

2 Wen. p. 121. 3 Wayne Booth, The Rhrroric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago k s , 1961), p. 321

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question the value of speculating about irony in works of this kind: "even if one doesn't curse the day that the word irony was let out of the rhetoric handbooks, one must surely conclude that it has made it harder to see the main critical issues in Moll Flander~."~ Challenging the usefulness of discussing irony complicates the question of external authority even further by discrediting the critical concept conventionally used to discuss it. Watt in effect calls for critics to rethink the terms in which they con- ceptualize the impact of external authority on texts. Michael Boardman has perceived a solution to the problem Watt describes, arguing that De- foe's systematic abridgment of the more quiescent episodes of Moll's life in favour of developing the more sensational ones provides evidence of "a mimetic intention not Moll's."'

Inspired by Virginia Woolf's having characterized a particular type of event in Moll's life as "impossible," Boardman argues that "at any time that one can say that something cannot happen in a narrative one is on the trail of a converse principle of generation and selection.'" In so far as it provides a conceptual basis for documenting external authority without recourse to any "voice" in the novel and, more important, without reference to the concept of irony, Boardman's "principle of generation and selection" represents a promising approach to overcoming "the difficult epistemological problem" Watt had identified. Boardman nevertheless severely restricts the implications of his own principle by considering Defoe's abridgment of Moll's "unsensational" experiences the only evidence of external control over the novel's content. To illustrate the limitations imposed by such a restrictive conception of "impossible events" on the ability to account for phenomena in the narrative, I propose to consider in some detail the implications of Defoe's having included a different kind of impossible event. This analysis will serve in turn as a basis for outlining an alternative approach to discussing external authority in narrative.

Extreme Moments as Markers of Narrative Logic

Near the midpoint of Moll Flanders, as Moll bemoans her fourth hus-

4 Wan, p. 125. 5 Michael Boardman. Defoc and the User of Narrative (New Benswick, NJ: Rutgen University

h s . 1983). p. 121. 6 Boardman, p. 124. Virginia Woolf's essay on Defae to which Boardman refers is included in

Doniel Defw: A Collecrion of Criricol Essays, ed. Max Byrd (Englovood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, 1976), pp. 15-22.

NARRATIVE LOGIC IN M O L L F L A N D E R S 3

band's untimely departure, to her "unspeakable Surprize" he suddenly returns to her chamber. She recounts their ensuing exchange as follows:

I TOLD him how I had pass'd my time, and how loud I had call'd him to come back again; he told me he heard me very plain upon Delamere Forest, at a Place about 12 Miles off: I smil'd; Nay says he, do not think I am in Jest, for if ever I heard your Voice in my Life, I heard you call me aloud, and sometimes I thought I saw you running after me; why said I, what did I say? for I had not nam'd the Words to him; you call'd me aloud, says he, and said, 0 Jemy! 0 .remy! come back, come back.'

She tries to laugh off his account as amorous hyperbole, but he swears he is in earnest: "my Dear, says he, do not Laugh, for depend upon it, I heard your Voice as plain as you hear mine now; if you please, I'll go before a Magistrate and make Oath of it" (p. 154). Jemy's willingness to swear an oath encourages Moll (and her readers) to accept Jemy's supernatural experience as authentic.

Defoe's interest in the supernatural has been well documented in other contexts-notably by Rodney Bainehbut this instance of telepathy is the only incontrovertibly metaphysical event in Moll Flanders. Although Moll routinely attributes events to Providence or blames her actions on the devil, the novel provides no evidence to support such assertions beyond Moll's usually self-serving testimony. On the contrary, as Ian Watt demonstrates, her narrative generally conveys the image of a profoundly secular and materialist world. Watt insisted that the novelist's "means should be rigidly restricted to terrestrial ... action^.'^ Thus, introducing an incident in which supernatural forces verifiably affect the course of events qualitatively redefines the nature of Moll's universe. For that one brief moment, Moll and Jemy unambiguously inhabit a universe in which supernatural forces influence human lives. The extraordinary nature of this episode would seem to qualify it as what Kenneth Burke describes as "a watershed moment": a "critical point" in the narrative characterized by "changes of slope, where some new quality enters."1° Thus, in so far as it seems to violate the decorum of the novel, the most

7 Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, ed. G.A. Starr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). p. 154. References are to Ulis edition.

8 See Danicl Defoc and the Supernoturd (Athens: University of Gwgia Press, 1%9). 9 Ian Watt. The Rise of the Now1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957). p. 184.

10 Kenneth Burke, The Philosopl~y of Literary Form, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1973). p. 78.


basic question posed by the supernatural episode ~ ~ ' M O N Flanders is simply how such a theoretically "impossible" event could have occurred in the novel.

Perhaps owing to its very singularity, this episode remarkably has escaped notice in most studies of the novel. David Blewett, Arnold Wein- stein, and Everett Zimmerman are, to my knowledge, the only critics even to mention the scene in their analyses of Moll Flanders." All three consider only the implications of the supernatural incident for Moll's story, which justifiably leads them to conclude that the episode underscores Moll and Jemy's profound attachment for each other. It bears noting, however, that this scene does not have implications only for an understanding of Moll and Jemy's relationship; it also has an appreciable impact on the structure of the plot.

Many readers have identified structural similarities among Moll's relationships. I do not believe it has been pointed out, however, that Jemy's initial departure, in which he left behind a letter absolving Moll of further obligations to the marriage, directly parallels the circumstances under which she was abandoned by her second husband, the "Gentleman- Tradesman." And, to judge from Jemy's own account, he might no more have returned than the gentleman-tradesman, had he not heard Moll's voice twelve miles off. In other words, short of this dew ex machina, Moll's relationship with Jemy might have been, in most particulars, indistinguishable from that with the gentleman-tradesman. The introduction of a supernatural element, however, serves not only to differentiate rad- ically between the two relationships but also to distinguish Jemy from all of Moll's other mates: he was the one lover who came back. By disrupting the pattern of relationships, the supernatural episode thus serves the important function of singling Jemy out, anticipating his subsequent role in Moll's narrative. The recourse to such an extraordinary artifice serves as well to draw attention both to the function that it performs in the plot and to itself.

In terms of the plot, the supernatural episode performs the function of decisively arresting Jemy's flight from Moll. And, to the extent that this is its only function, it logically follows that preventing Jemy's departure had to have been, for some unspecified reason, necessary. If so, it can be argued that Jemy could not be allowed to leave Moll under those circumstances and that some pretext was required to motivate his return.

I I David Blcwett. Defm s An of Fimnn (Toronlo: Universily of Tomnto R 3 s . 19791: Arnold Wemnern. Ftrrwnr of rhr SrK 1550-1800 (Rnu ton : Rncemn U n l v m i r y Press. 1981); Evcreu Z~mmerman. Defw oed the Novel (Berkeley: University of Cal~fom~a Press. 19751.

NARRATIVE LOGIC IN MOLL F L A N D E R S 5

Such a reading must nevertheless presuppose a narrative logic that de- fines Jemy's departure i s an "impossible" event, which the necessity of preventing at any cost would authorize ovemding even the proscription on supernatural interventions.

Jonathan Culler suggests that readers conventionally assume "the prior- ity of events to the discourse which reports or presents them."12 Events, in other words, determine the stories we tell about them. This is ap- parently the assumption underlying Ian Watt's assertion that "the order of the narrative is determined only by the sequence of actual events in the lives of the protagonist^."^^ From his perspective, the supernatural incident would constitute an "actual event" that caused Jemy's return to Moll's chamber-which is in fact how she would present the incident years later. As Culler argues, however, assuming that the discourse necessarily represents what has already taken place in a story may not satisfactorily explain the presence of specific events in narratives. Claim- ing that "the functioning of narratives often subverts [such a hierarchy] by presenting events not as givens but as products of discursive forces or requirement^,"'^ he insists that we "have to ask instead whether this is an event that determines meaning and discourse or whether it is itself determined by various narrative and discursive requirements."lS In other words, did Jemy return because of the supernatural incident or did the logic of the narrative require creating some such event to cause Jemy's retum?

Even allowing provisionally that this event responds to the discursive requirements of a narrative logic, it is evident that Defoe did not need to go to such lengths to accomplish his purpose. Yet it bears recalling that Defoe had gone to nearly the same lengths to end one of Moll's earlier marriages. Assuming Defoe sincerely intended readers to accept Moll's narrative as "genuine," few contrivances could have strained their credulity more than the series of coincidences required to transform her third husband into her brother. It would certainly be reasonable to accept that Moll left her husband because he was her brother, but the sheer scandal and improbability of this development permit asking whether he might not have had to become a forbidden partner-a brother being the pre-eminent candidate for such a distinction-because the logic of

12 Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs (IIhaca: Cornell university Press, 1981). p. 172.

13 The Rise of the Novel, p. 106.

14 Culler, p. 172.

15 Culler, p. 186.


the narrative demanded a pretext for dissolving an otherwise satisfactory relationship.

It would be difficult to imagine more extreme solutions to the diegetic problems of prolonging one relationship and terminating another. Yet it is precisely the glaring artifice of these solutions that exposes the mechanics of a narrative logic. Such extreme or "watershed" moments accomplish two complementary purposes in narratives. One, they reflect the influence. of logical necessities: they demonstrate, by their very extravagance, that what they do had to be accomplished at any cost. Two, they draw attention, by their very singularity, to themselves and to the functions they perform, thereby exposing them as responses to logical necessities. De- foe's willingness to compromise the verisimilitude of the plot by resorting to metaphysics and to complicate his heroine's morality by subjecting her to incest not only dramatically illustrates that he is making things happen but also signals that he is doing so. Demonstrating that the functions these events perform were necessary would provide compelling evidence that events in the novel respond to discursive requirements.

In designating the two incidents I have discussed as extreme moments in Moll Flanders, I am suggesting that a narrative logic, which determines not only what can or cannot happen but also when it can happen, governs the plot of the narrative. In these terms, $e nature and sequence of events would be neither arbitrary nor episodic but instead controlled to a considerable extent by logical necessities.

Delineating such a narrative logic will be my task for the balance of this essay. But the issue underlying this effort to demonstrate the narrative's inherent logic remains the question of external control. Although my argument depends on illustrating that Moll's narrative progresses logically towards a necessary and satisfactory conclusion, I am primarily concerned with the evidence that, at key points in the text, this progression has been controlled and sustained by discursive considerations operating independently o f -and thus subordinating-Moll's discourse.

The Implications of Closure

Narrative logics tend towards closure, and, as such, are defined by endings. They are by definition teleological mechanisms for ushering narrative elements towards a desired resolution. As Peter Brooks notes, "only the end can finally determine meaning, close the sentence as a signi-

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N MOLL FLANDERS 7

fying totality."16 For the ending to perform such a signifying function, however, it must logically complete a narrative syntax, as opposed to summarily or arbitrarily arresting an episodic accumulation. To the extent that a conclusion achieves such closure, it implies the fulfilment of discursive requirements: the satisfaction of the desires that have driven the narrative. Yet the specific nature of the conclusion also has the effect of clarifying those requirements and identifying its own generative desires. It is in this sense, as Peter Brooks affirms, that endings "bestow meaning and significance on the beginning and middle.""

Given the implications of achieving narrative closure, it is perhaps not surprising that critics who do not consider Moll Flanders a structurally coherent work tend to argue that the novel ends on an inconclusive note. For example, Watt contends that Defoe does not "show any clear intention of winding up his plot with any sense of completeness or finality."ls But in what sense is the conclusion of M o l l Flanders either confusing or incomplete? Reunited with her favourite husband, with whom she will remain for the rest of her life, and having achieved complete financial security, Moll will never again turn to either prostitution or theft. The final episode-in part, by virtue of its very finality--differs qualitatively from any other episode in the book.

The final paragraph of the novel is remarkable both for its pacing and for the span of time it incorporates. The paragraph begins slowly by de- tailing a conversation between Moll and Jemy in Virginia and concludes by flashing forward through the "Remainder" of their lives together in England. The conversation concerns Moll's disclosing her incestuous marriage with her recently deceased brother and Jemy's reaction to her confession, part of which is directly quoted. Upon Moll's learning that "He was perfectly easy in the Account," however, the quality of the narrative abruptly changes. In a single sentence, Moll not only announces that all of her "difficulties" were resolved but also intimates that she would never again experience any of the problems and peripeteia that had hitherto typified her entire narrative: "Thus all these little Difficul- ties were made easy, and we liv'd together with the greatest Kindness and Comfort imaginable; we are now grown Old" (p. 342). Following this ultimate confession to Jemy, Moll's life seems to have undergone an instantaneous, radical, and enduring transformation.

16 Peter Brmks, Reading for the Plot: Design ondlntention in N m r i v c (New York: Wntage Books, 19851, p. 22.

17 Brooks, p. 21. 18 The Rise of the Novel, p. 105.


The significance of this confession would seem to consist of Moll's having divulged her only remaining secret to Jemy. Although Moll is frequently characterized by a need for secrecy, she clearly implies that she has been secretive less by inclination than because she has had no one in whom to confide: "and yet having no Body to disclose any part of it to, the Burthen was too heavy for my mind; ... a Secret of Moment should always have a Confident, a bosom Friend, to whom we may Communicate the Joy of it, or the Grief of it" (p. 325). Thus, her revealing her most closely guarded secret to Jemy would tend to qualify him as the "Confident" and "bosom Friend" she claims always to have lacked. This notion is reinforced by John Richetti's observation that Moll's confession to Jemy marks an unprecedented instance of complete candour.l9

The evidence of the conclusion confirms Jemy's role as a key player in the outcome of Moll's narrative. The abrupt suspension of Moll's story- telling following her confession to Jemy and the concomitant shift in the quality of her life, which continued well beyond the end of her narrative, strongly suggest that their relationship satisfied the narrative's criteria for closure and precipitated a resolution of the plot. Such indications seemingly encourage the inference that Moll's quest for precisely this union constituted a driving force-if not the primary goal-in her life.

As a review of Jemy's role in the plot makes clear, however, the paucity of evidence to identify her desire for Jemy as a unifying thread in her life belies any attempt to infer that the ending represents a carefully prepared conclusion. As Moll's fourth husband, Jemy is not introduced until the novel is nearly half over, and he is absent from long stretches of the second half-notably from the entire section devoted to Moll's criminal exploits. This evidence leads Lee Edwards to conclude that, although the Jemy subplot provides a "relatively tight structure," it could not unify the novel as a whole because it only "occupies one fifth of the book.'='

It must be recalled, however, that it is only following the resumption of their relationship that Moll allows herself to confide in Jemy. Dur- ing the initial phase of their relationship, literally at the point at which Moll professes her greatest love for Jemy, she still "resolv'd to con- ceal everything" (p. 149). Following their reunion at Newgate, however,

19 John I. Richetti, Defw's Narratives: Shuotions ond Srructures (Oxford: Clanndon Pnss, 1975), p. 144.

20 Lee Edwards. "Between the Real and the Moral: Problems in the Smcturt of Moll Flanders," Tbentieth-Century lnterprctotions of "Moll Flanders": A Collection of Criticol Essoys, ed. Robert C. Elliott (Englewoad Cliffs, NI: Pnntice-Hall, 1970), p. 99.

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N M O L L FLANDERS 9

Moll initiates a series of increasingly truthful revelations to Jemy not only about the extent of her considerable wealth but ultimately about the most intimate and closely guarded secrets of her personal life. Her having postponed this revelation, among others, until after her reunion with Jemy strongly suggests that the conditions for telling him her secrets ex- ceeded the fact of their involvement. Jemy may have been indispensable to the resolution of Moll's narrative, but the evidence suggests that his relationship with Moll is not sufficient to explain why he ultimately enjoys such prominence.

This qualification of Moll and Jemy's relationship has important consequences for defining the relation between the conclusion and the balance of Moll's narrative. In the first place, it suggests that, whereas Jemy's reconciliation with Moll may have been required to end the narrative, other criteria had to be met for their reunion to authorize Moll's candour. Clearly, for the ending to achieve closure, it must satisfactorily resolve the plot as a whole-hence the significance of infemng such a connection between the Jemy subplot and prior developments in the narrative. In the second place, recognizing that Moll's confession to Jemy is contingent on other factors implies that the sequence of events is not arbitrary but instead governed by internal exigencies. Thus, to paraphrase Boardman, at any time that one can say that something cannot happen in a narrative until certain conditions have been met, one is on the trail of a logic underlying the "selection and generation" of events.

The Logic of Goals

The evidence of the conclusion suggests that, despite Jemy's relatively minor role in Moll's narrative, Moll's life was governed by her pursuit of the relationship she enjoys with him at the end. The attempt to define the quest for such a relationship as a motive force in the novel, however, immediately confronts the obstacle that, as a very young girl, Moll had expressed her determination to become "a Gentlewoman." Since this was Moll's earliest explicit desire-her first stated goal--critics have understandably privileged the statement as a governing principle in her life.21 What is more, since Moll expressed this wish long before she

21 See, for instance, Tennce Martin, "The Unity of Moll Flonders," Moll Flanders, ed. Edward Kelly (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973). pp. 362-71; J.A. Michie, "The Unity of MollFlonders," Knaves and Swindlers: E s s w on the Picaresque Novel in Europe, ed. Christine I. Whitbourn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974). pp. 75-92; and Michael Shinagel, Daniel Dejoe ond Middle-Closr GmriliQ (Cambridge: Haward University PFess, 1968). as well as the studies by Lee Edwards and Arnold Weinstein cited above.


was aware of men as a possible factor in her life, many readers have interpreted her childhood goal as specifically excluding the presence of others in her life. In doing so, they invoke the authority of her own words: "all I understood by being a Gentlewoman, was to be able to Work for myself, and get enough to keep me without that temble Bug-bear going to Service" (p. 13).

Defined simply, as she subsequently says, as her desire "to be able to get my Bread by my own Work" (p. 13), Moll's aspiration to be a '%en- tlewoman" means no more to her than becoming a self-employed and self-supporting woman. This is precisely the interpretation upon which Nancy Miller bases her strong feminist reading of the novel. Finding "a desire for independence" as the driving force in Moll's narrative, she de- fines it as "a more sophisticated reiteration of [Moll's] childhood wish to be a 'gentlewoman,' by which she meant to depend on no one."* The attraction of this early statement by Moll is self-evident: since Moll's ob- session with acquiring money (as Juliet McMaster conclusively shows)" seems to be her one constant preoccupation throughout the variety of her adventures and since Moll eventually achieves complete financial independence, her childhood wish both generates a consistent thematic emphasis throughout the text and provides a direct link between beginning and end.

While such readings clearly resist claims that the work as a whole lacks structural coherence, they nevertheless rest on the assumption that Moll's childhood wish can be taken at face value as a reliable and static blueprint for her entire life-an assumption directly contradicted by the evidence of the text. Moll not only discovers that her initial goal does not adequately reflect her desires, she also sets new goals that compensate for the modesty of her youthful aspirations. Her initial conception of becoming a gentlewoman, which was largely motivated by her childish horror of "going to Service," proves to be too easily attainable to qualify as a lifelong goal: "so that now I was a Gentlewoman indeed, as I understood that Word, and as I desir'd to be, for by that time, I was twelve Years old, I not only found myself Cloaths, and paid my Nurse for my keeping, but got Money in my Pocket too before-hand" (p. 15).

Moreover, no sooner has she had the opportunity to frequent the home of fashionable gentlewomen than she redefines her goals to include the

22 Nancy Miller, The Heroine's Tcn: Readings in the French and English Novel. 1722-1782 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980).

23 Juliet McMasler, "The Equation of Lave and Money in Moll Flanders." Srvdies in the Novel 2 (1970). 131-44.

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N MOLL FLANDERS I1

very option she had previously rejected: "I had such a Tast of Genteel living at the Ladies House, that I was not so easie in my old Quarters as I us'd to be, and I thought it was fine to be a Gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other Notions of a Gentlewoman now, than I had before" @. 16; emphasis added). Thus, without repudiating her desire to become a "Gen- tlewoman," Moll adjusts her conception of that goal to accommodate her maturing appetites.

Moll's discovery that her initial goals are inadequate provides the first evidence that a narrative logic, which eludes both her control and her awareness, guides her progress. When she initially declares that she wants to become a gentlewoman, she acknowledges that the term also has another meaning ("for they meant one Sort of thing, by the Word Gentlewoman, and I meant quite another," p. 13). but she is unable to appreciate, as she subsequently does, that the alternative meaning represents a far more attractive goal. By introducing Moll's true goal before she is prepared to identify with it, the narrative reveals early on its anticipation of the direction in which Moll will evolve, in a way that Moll herself does not.

Similarly, when Moll identifies the "Woman that mended Lace, and wash'd the Ladies Lac'd-heads" as her role model, she inadvertently introduces into the narrative a prophetic conception of gentlewoman with which she is immediately unable to identify. As her nurse explains, "POOR Child, says my good old Nurse, you may soon be such a Gentlewoman such as that, for she is a Person of ill Fame, and has had two or three Bastards" (p. 14).

It is certainly reasonable to insist that Moll, as a na'ive eight-year- old, never meant to identify with a prostitute; as she tells her nurse, "I DID not understand any thing of that" (p. 14). As this essay attempts to demonstrate, however, characterizing such an insinuation as unintended by Moll in no way disqualifies it as a meaningful and operative dimension of the narrative. As subsequent events reveal, Moll's misunderstanding of this option supports my thesis that aspects of the text are beyond Moll's control, as certain meanings are beyond her intentions. For, even though Moll neither intended nor even understood such a tacit meaning of the word "gentlewoman," her very first relationship fulfils her nurse's prediction that Moll "may soon be such a Gentlewoman as that." To the extent that Moll derives essentially all her income from relationships during the first half of her life-something she could not remotely have anticipated at the time she declared her goal to be a gentlewoman- it would seem inadequate to define her progress without reference to a


model that anticipated not only her involvement with men but specifically her economic reliance on them.

Thus, in the process of articulating goals and desires that will shape the course of her life, the early episodes define a pattern of correcting or amplifying Moll's limited conceptions. In so far as these alternatives to Moll's conceptions are ultimately validated by the narrative, as I intend to demonstrate, they provide tangible evidence that Moll's agendas do not govern her narrative.

The Conditions for Closure

Rom the standpoint of its impact on shaping Moll's goals, her first love affair is the single most influential experience in her narrative. Prior to her involvement with the elder brother, there is no evidence that she had attached any significance to relationships. By the conclusion of this episode, however, relationships have been singled out as the most expe- dient means of attaining her youthful goals; moreover, participating in a certain kind of relationship has itself become an integral feature of those lifelong goals.

As anticipated in the third conception of gentlewoman, the immediate significance of Moll's first affair is that it introduces Moll to relationships as a source of income and thus as a potential means of achieving her goals-a possibility Moll does not appear to have previously considered. Moll admits that she was "more confounded with the Money than I was before with the Love" (p. 23). Once she has made this discovery, however, the money promptly assumes a prominent place in her romantic fantasies. But acquiring money has not simply pre-empted other considerations in the affair. When Moll mentions the money, she invariably pairs it with references to the effects of the elder brother's lovemak- ing. It is not the allure of the money alone but "the Sight of the Purse, and with the fire of his Proposal together" (pp. 28-29, emphasis added) that lead Moll to give in to the elder brother. As Juliet McMaster has perceptively noted, Moll displays with the elder brother "the ability to combine love with financial concerns ... rather than merely substituting money for love."u It would be incorrect to assume, however, that the elder brother's superior fortune alone accounts for Moll's prefer- ing him to his younger brother, since she emphatically claims that, "if the best Lord in the Land offer'd me Mamage now, I could very chear- fully say NO to him" (p. 37). Moll's determination to refuse an even more


lucrative match reveals that she is no longer motivated solely by financial considerations; her affair with the elder brother has introduced her to love as a compelling new object of her desire.

Despite her inexperience, Moll's initial reaction to the elder brother's flirtation nevertheless reveals that she had formed at least one precon- ception about love, namely that "there was no such thing as any kind of Love, but that which tended to Matrimony" (p. 24). In much the same way as she had initially rejected alternative conceptions of gentility, however, Moll immediately repudiates her original assumption about the relation between love and marriage. She seems to have accepted not only that they have no necessary relation to each other but also, and most important, that their separation is of no concern to her. She seems content to enjoy the elder brother's love and his money: "whether he intended to Many me, or not to Many me, seem'd a Matter of no great Consequence to me" (p. 25).

As the episode unfolds, the opposition between the terms love and marriage becomes increasingly pronounced. Facing pressure to many her lover's brother, Moll characterizes the two experiences as irreconcilable: "I could never be persuaded to Love one Brother, and Marry another" @. 49, emphasis added). Yet, whereas enjoying love had originally made her indifferent to marriage, the dawning awareness that she has been misled by her lover prompts her to reassess the two terms. Even though Moll has tried to persuade herself that she is as good as married to her lover, she eventually concedes that she is no bettter than his "Whore" (p. 39). In the course of the episode, Moll has degraded the term "love" into a synonym for prostitution.

Moreover, Moll has learned that being a "Gentlewoman" in this third sense of the term is also inimical to her interests. Marriage has been con- comitantly redefined as the key to attaining "what [she] would" (p. 26). Determined not to be "trick'd" again "by that Cheat call'd LOVE," she is "resolv'd now to be Married, or Nothing, and to be well Married, or not at all" (p. 60). The hierarchy between the terms "love" and "marriage," which are clearly considered mutually exclusive, has thus been completely inverted in the course of the episode.

The narrative nevertheless makes it clear that the satisfaction of a marriage governed by such pragmatic considerations has failed to extinguish her passion for the elder brother: "I never was in Bed with my Hus- band, but I wish'd my self in the Arms of his Brother. ... In short, I committed Adultery and Incest with him every Day in my Desires" (p. 59). Anticipating the psychoanalytic definition of desire as that which


remains unappeased by the satisfaction of a need, Moll experiences a residual disatisfaction that cannot be. reconciled with her practical needs. Moll's persistent desire implies that financial security, though essential, is not sufficient; her "love" for the elder brother fuels her "criminal" desires even though she has no financial womes. By documenting the en- durance of Moll's desire, the narrative insists that in repudiating love she represses a driving force in her own being.

In challenging Moll's rejection of love, the narrative nevertheless does not sanction restoring her original preference for love over marriage. The logic of the narrative clearly approves her understanding that financial security in a relationship can only be ensured through marriage, but it rejects her conclusion that contracting an economically viable marriage precludes emotional satisfaction. Although it had been established a priori that "there was not any kind of Love but that which tended towards Matrimony," Moll disregards the evidence that her own fulfilment ultimately depends on her reconciling the t w o - a point dramatically illustrated by the nearly fatal consequences of ending her affair with the elder brother:

The bare loss of him as a Gallant was not so much my Affliction, as the loss of his Person, whom indeed I Lov'd to Distraction; and the loss of all the Expectations I had, and which I always had built my Hopes upon, of having him one Day for my Husband: These things oppress'd my Mind so much, that in short, I fell very ill, the agonies of my Mind, in a word, threw me into a high Feaver, and long it was, that none in the Family expected my Life. (pp. 4142)

David Blewett has argued that "It is the momentous realization ... that there may be love without matrimony as there may be matrimony without love that shapes the whole course of Moll's life.'" Although I entirely agree that these critical distinctions do in fact "shape" Moll's decisions to a considerable extent, textual evidence strongly suggests that the logic of the narrative does not endorse them. Moll's experiences with the two brothers may have taught her to reject love in her pursuit of a profitable marriage; but, as the failure of subsequent relationships will insistently confirm, the narrative logic opposes Moll's goal as fundamentally flawed.

Yet, having presented Moll's resolution to be "well Married" and im- plictly challenged her determination to dissociate love from marriage, the narrative introduces an episode that seemingly ignores both of these pri- orities: Moll impulsively marries the "Gentleman-Tradesman" @. 60),

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N M O L L F L A N D E R S 15

neither for love nor for money. She promptly identifies her "Fancy to a Gentleman" (p. 61) as the incentive for this misalliance, and she insists throughout the episode that her husband's gentility was his most alluring quality: "for I told you he was a Gentleman" (p. 62); "or still I say, he was much of a Gentleman" (p. 63). Confining Moll's description of this marriage to a single scene in which she and her husband, respectively, masqueraded as "my Lord" and "her Honour, the Count- ess" (p. 61) and "liv'd like Quality indeed" (p. 62) confirms that this episode serves primarily to emphasize what Michael Shinagel describes as Moll's "inability to resist the trappings of gentility."26

This marriage demonstrates further that Moll's goals are not reducible to a desire for wealth or even for financial independence. In the first place, her husband was not a wealthy man: although he does come into "a lump of Money," he did not have "any thing worth mentioning" (p. 61) when they were married. In the second, as the following description reveals, Moll is drawn to qualities that wealth alone will not ensure:

I would have a Tradesman forsooth, that was something of a Gentleman too ... and not be one that had the mark of his Apron-strings upon his Coat, or the mark of his Hat upon his Perriwig; that should look as if he was set on to his Sword, when .his Sword was put on to him, and that carried his Trade in his Countenance. (p. 60)

Moll conceives of gentility, which she had previously characterized as living "Great, Rich, and High," as, above all, a style of conspicuous con- sumption: knowing how to live "like Quality indeed." Her desire to be associated with such a gentleman is to be understood in cultural-if not social-terms as a wish to pass for a gentlewoman in the world and thus to enjoy the privileges and prestige of travelling in a higher social sphere. Moll's humble origins make her indifferent to the technicality of a pedi- gree. Her desire to become a gentlewoman through marriage had been an important consideration in her involvement with the two brothers. But, since both were gentlemen, their gentility was never explicitly identified as a criterion for choosing them. Hence the logical necessity for a sep- arate episode to establish that Moll's desire to be a gentlewoman has sociocultural as well as economic determinants.

This relationship, however, proves to be Moll's most dismal failure in marriage. And, in so far as she claims to have been "betray'd and "hurried on to Ruin" (p. 60) by her "Fancy to a Gentleman," it is this

26 Shinagel, p. 156.


motivation that Moll comes to repudiate. Much as she had rejected love following her affair with the elder brother (and for similar reasons), Moll rejects her susceptibility to gentlemen as inimical to her financial interests. She has progressively narrowed her options to the point where achieving economic comfort and security seems the only meaningful consideration.

Having thus excluded love and gentility from consideration, Moll, not surprisingly, next marries the wealthy plantation owner strictly for money. This marriage appears to have fulfilled all of Moll's expectations, and she seems entirely satisfied with the match. She insists that she was "very happily married" to "the best humour'd Man that ever Woman had" (p. 82). Settled with her husband and her "Mother-in-law" on their Virginia plantation, she thinks herself "the happiest Creature alive" until "an odd and surprizing Event put an end to all that Felicity in a moment" ( P 85).

This episode clearly fits the pattern Boardman describes. The abrupt reversal of Moll's fortunes reflects the narrative's impatience with--if not intolerance for-her "Felicity." Yet, despite the episode's confor- mity with this pattern, such a generic and undifferentiated principle of exclusion does not seem adequate to account for the extreme and unprecedented nature of the "odd and surprizing Event" that subverts her third maniage. The contrivance of embroiling Moll in an incestuous relationship strongly suggests that the objection to this marriage has other determinants.

In fact, what is perhaps most striking is that, from Moll's perspective, there are no objections to this marriage. The failure of her relationships with the elder brother and the gentleman-tradesman have taught her. that a financially secure marriage such as this one, in which love had "but very little [Share] in the Matter" (p. 67), was the safest and most acceptable option. Thus, the intervention of this event not only dis- rupts the marriage but also deprives Moll of what she thinks she wants. The event is significantly beyond both her control and her understanding. Moll does not learn anything from this experience; the anomaly of being married to her own brother is not conducive to generalizations about avoiding certain types of liaisons. Seemingly without explanation, irra- tionally but decisively, the narrative simply interposes an insuperable obstacle to continuing the marriage."

27 Ellen Pollak reaches a similar conclwion in her "Moll Flanders, Incest, and the Svucture of Exchange," The Eighreenrh C c n t q : Theory ondlnrerprerorion 30, (Spring 1989). 3-21.

NARRATIVE LOGIC IN MOLL FLANDERS 17

Incest nevertheless does not fit neatly into any available category of "odd and surprizing" events. As the only universal taboo, it is unique and incomparable. Since incest necessarily stands out in the text in a way that other, less startling, events would not, it serves to highlight the function that it performs in the text. And that function is to disrupt a loveless marriage contracted primarily for economic reasons. Foregrounding this function permits recognizing that her first husband's death had, with con- siderably less fanfare, served the same function. Incest and the death of a spouse constitute the only two conditions that make marriage cate- gorically impossible, and both have been invoked here in similar circumstances. What is more, both are caused by forces and coincidences beyond the control or will of any character.

One approach to establishing the logical necessity for terminating these two relationships in such similarly decisive manners is to contrast them with the conclusion of Moll's two other relationships. As Moll sees it, her relationships with the elder brother and the gentleman-tradesman both fail because of problems internal to the relationships: the elder brother refuses to many her, and the gentleman-tradesman abandons her to avoid debtor's prison. She interprets these experiences, respectively, as warnings about the dangers of love and the extravagance of gentility. The destruction of Moll's marriages to Robin and the plantation owner implies, however, that the narrative does not support her rejection of love and gentility in favour of financial security.

Rather, Moll's relationships with the elder brother and the gentleman- tradesman serve not to discredit love and gentility but, respectively, to affirm each as powerful and enduring aspects of Moll's desires. On these grounds, the narrative must reject her marriage to the younger brother because she does not love him, as it must her marriage to the plantation owner both for this reason and because he is not a gentleman. The fact that Moll neither anticipates nor initiates the rejection of the two relationships provides compelling evidence that requirements of a different order govern the narrative's discourse.

Although the preceding discussion has identified yet another instance of a tension or disparity between Moll's purposes and those of her narrative's logic, I am not suggesting that the two operate consistently at cross-purposes. The reasons Moll understands for the failure of her relationships with the elder brother and the gentleman-tradesman are entirely valid: to settle for love without the security of marriage is a perilous un- dertaking, as is manying a gentleman without sufficient money to support a genteel lifestyle. Yet, in addition to sanctioning Moll's pursuit of both


Marriage and Wealth, the narrative affirms Love and Gentility as equally integral to her complete satisfaction.

Having independently established and reinforced Moll's desire for each of these conditions, the narrative signals its insistence on the conjunction of all four conditions by undermining any relationship in which they are not all present, irrespective of Moll's approval or disapproval of the relationship. This qualification is important because it accounts for the narrative's persistence in disrupting relationships with which Moll is perfectly content. Since Moll remains unaware of the conditions that have been defined for her complete satisfaction (and for her narrative's closure), she will continue to experiment with different, and hence unacceptable, combinations of these conditions, until the narrative orchestrates the optimal combination.

From such a perspective, Moll's next relationship, her affair with the Gentleman at Bath, clearly constitutes a regression: she is, once again, the mistress of a wealthy gentleman. Following the failure of her relationship with the plantation owner, however, such a regression is required both to reaffirm her susceptibility to gentlemen and to recall the enduring fascination of her affair with the elder brother. Moll's insistence that she is as good as mamed to this gentleman unmistakably echoes the identical claims she had made about that first relationship: "I nurs'd him and tended him my self, as much and as carefully as if I had been his Wife; indeed if I had been his Wife, 1 could not have done more" (p. 113). Yet, as before, she accepts the "unmusical harsh-sounding Title of WHORE" (p. 116) as a more appropriate epithet.

Moll, however, is not simply making the same mistake twice. This relationship significantly differs from the first one because no love is involved. Offering neither the security of mamage nor the joy of love, this type of relationship presents the least desirable conjunction of terms. Moll confirms this fact with her paradoxical and patently sophistic claim that this relationship is somehow more criminal than even her incestuous union with her brother: "I reflected that I might with less Offence have continued with my Brother, and liv'd with him as a Wife, since there was no Crime in our Marriage on that score, neither of us knowing it" ( p 124).

Moll's next two marriages complete the cycle of relationships in her life and neatly balance out her relationships with the two brothers, which they structurally resemble. This is the only other time Moll is involved in two relationships simultaneously. She is first tempted to have an affair with the banker; but, having learned from her unfortunate experiences


with both the elder brother and the Gentleman at Bath, she refuses to become involved with him except on condition that he divorce his wife and marry her. He is, as she says, "a safe Card" (p. 142): a wealthy man who may offer her the security of marriage.

In the interim she meets and promptly mames the man she would later identify as Jemy. Jemy is portrayed as having "the Appearance of an extraordinary fine Gentleman" (p. 143); in fact, unlike the gentleman- tradesman who merely affects gentility, Jemy "was bred a Gentleman" (p. 149). When this gentleman presents Moll "the glittering show of a great Estate" (p. 144) and proposes marriage, he seems to be offering Moll three of the things she most desires in life. Considering the way Moll refers to his effect on her, it also becomes clear that he represents the component that had been missing from her life since the affair with the elder brother: "THIS was such Language indeed as I had not been us'd to, and I was here beaten out of all my Measures. ... In short, my Eyes were dazl'd; I had now lost my Power of saying No" (p. 143). In describing the impact of his proposal, Moll resorts to the same hyper- bolic rhetoric she had earlier used to describe her seduction by the elder brother. As she had said, if the elder brother had spoken to her of marriage, she would have "had no Room, as well as no Power to have said No" @. 24). In noting the parallels between these two relationships, Juliet McMaster agrees that they differ from all the others in assigning a prominent place to love: "with [Jemy] she regains the ability to combine love with financial concerns, as she had with the elder brother, rather than merely substituting money for love."2s Embodying the four conditions necessary for Moll's complete satisfaction, Jemy seems to represent the fulfilment of the narrative's perfect fantasy.

Predictably, his wealth proves to be nothing more than a carefully prepared illusion intended to secure her equally chimerical fortune. Every previous indication in the novel has prepared the reader for Moll to reject such an impoverished relationship. Yet, even though Moll conceals her true assets from Jemy, she offers, in her most unprecedented gesture, to stay with him in spite of their penury: "if he could propose any probable method of living, I would do any thing that became me on my part, and ... I would live as close and as narrow as he cou'd desire" (p. 149). When he leaves, Moll is-again, uncharacteristically-devastated.

Although she has known only one previous love, this incident un- equivocally establishes love as the most powerful force or term in Moll's

20 E I G H T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y PICTION

economy. The narrative thus requires Jemy's poverty as a condition for demonstrating that love is the only tern capable of displacing money as the most important consideration in Moll's life. As she says, shortly after his departure, she "fell into a vehement Fit of crying, every now and then, calling him by his Name, which was James, 0 Jemy! said I, come back, come back, I'll give you all I have; I'll beg, I'll starve with you" (p. 153). To confirm love's incontrovertible supremacy in Moll's desires, the novel then resorts to its single most extreme artifice: the supematu- ral episode, which I have already examined in detail. Just as the logic of the narrative had introduced incest to stress its opposition to one kind of relationship, it here invokes supernatural forces to sanction another kind.

Yet, however much Moll seems prepared to brave a life of poverty for the sake of this new love, the logic of the narrative must resist her charitable impulses, even as it allows her to voice them with impunity. Moll cannot yet afford her happy ending. Jemy must go; marriage to Moll without money is unconscionable.

Following Jemy's second departure, Moll resumes the relationship with the banker and thus completes the cycle. It is almost a perfect ana- logue of the relationship with the younger brother: both last five years and produce two children; being based primarily on marriage and money, it also resembles the relationship with her own brother. Moll is once again perfectly content with the arrangement and seems prepared to spend the rest of her life as the banker's wife: "I had a prospect of a very happy Life, if I knew how to manage it ... how different it was to be from the loose ungovem'd part I had acted before, and how much happier a Life of Virtue and Sobriety is, than that which we call a Life of Pleasure" (p. 188).

Moll invariably retreats to this type of relationship following the col- lapse of her more enticing yet less secure liaisons. Yet, however acceptable this version of domestic felicity would become in subsequent bourgeois fictions, the logic opposing it in this narrative is unlikely to be placated by Moll's rationalizations about "Virtue and Sobriety." Hav- ing established its opposition to this kind of relationship through the death of Moll's first husband and the disclosure of her incestuous marriage, the narrative has prepared the reader for the "sudden Blow from an almost invisible Hand" (p. 189) that will fell the banker. The anoma- lous "almost" in the formulation sheepishly concedes that the artifice stands out like a sore thumb: visible to the attentive eye, the artificer's Hand can be glimpsed as through briefly parted curtains, turning the crank of a deus ex machina, flaunting the ease with which it disposes of unacceptable mates.


The flagrant redundancy of this death has a decisive effect on Moll's narrative. By conforming in virtually every particular to familiar prece- dents in the narrative, this incident not only exposes the pattern underlying Moll's successive relationships but also reveals that the narrative has exhausted its creative potential. Since it has been conclusively established that Moll's relationships will inevitably fail to meet her needs, further demonstration would be. superfluous at the levels of both the story and the discourse. The very unimaginativeness of the banker's death de- mands a change in the narrative. Introducing this change, however, has a profoundly disruptive and problematic impact on the narrative.

The Logic of Structural Transformation

From a structural standpoint, the transition to the segment devoted to Moll's criminal exploits poses the most serious challenge to any argument about the novel's internal coherence. Following the death of her latest husband, Moll abruptly abandons her quest for the ideal relationship in favour of a solitary life of crime. The change is dramatic in several re- spects: not only are Moll's activities qualitatively different. both she and her narrative undergo a thorough metamorphosis. After a period of complete disorientation, during which she is "Distracted and Raving ... doing I did not know what, or why" (p. 191), Moll rapidly develops into a "compleat Thief, harden'd to a eitch above all the Reflections of Con- science or Modesty, and to a Degree which I must acknowledge I never thought possible in me" (p. 202). Likewise, the narrative, which had been unified by tight thematic links and a balanced structure of repeti- tions, now consists essentially of discrete and loosely connected episodes, sharing little more than the common theme of criminality. The transition registers as a rupture separating two qualitatively different kinds of narrative.

This segment of the narrative supports arguments about the novel's lack of structure. Even though the change in the quality of the narrative signals and parallels Moll's reorientation, the resulting episodic concatenation produces an impression of fragmentation difficult to rec- oncile with the view I have been advancing of a systematic progression towards the fulfilment of clearly defined objectives. Ian Watt understandably bases his claims about the work's lack of internal coherence largely on evidence from this section of the It bears noting, however, that

29 See his argument in The Rise ofrhr Novel, especially W. 96100.


the only significant discontinuity in the novel concerns the relation between the crime segment and the rest of the narrative; internally, the crime section is remarkably homogeneous and consistent, both in terms of the type of events it contains and the way they are linked. Characteriz- ing this discontinuity as structurally incoherent overlooks the possibility that internal exigencies may have required Moll's involvement in a qualitatively different kind of activity. Evidence that Moll's crimes have been bracketed within her narrative further recommends distinguishing them from her other experiences.

Considered in its entirety, the section devoted to Moll's criminal exploits constitutes a clearly delineated hiatus in an otherwise homogeneous sequence of events. Following Moll's arrest and conversion at New- gate, the narrative reintroduces themes and characters from the earlier episodes. The dramatic transformation Moll undergoes as a result of her conversion at Newgate essentially reverses the metamorphosis that had preceded her becoming a criminal. The narrative similarly resumes the far more cohesive presentation of events characteristic of the first half. The internal consistency of the crime segment and its circumscrip- tion suggest that, instead of amounting to a series of discrete episodes, it constitutes a single unit, which, as a whole, performs a specific function in the text. And, viewing the segment from this purview, it is immediately apparent that the single most decisive effect of Moll's crime spree is to transform her into a very wealthy woman. The narrative clearly establishes both the necessity for this result and, specifically, for Moll's engaging in an essentially solitary activity.

Since she depends absolutely on the banker for her well-being, Moll quickly grasps the implications of his death: "I saw evidently that if he died I was undone" (p. 189). The financial plight into which the banker's death throws Moll exposes her miscalculation in assuming this mamage could secure her from want. In fact, as her narrative has consistently demonstrated, Moll's relationships, for all their differences, share the distinction of having Failed to ensure her financial well-being. Although Moll's persistence in pursuing men confirms her inability to draw such an inference from her experiences, the narrative's insistence on this critical failure challenges her strategy of relying exclusively on relationships to achieve her goals. Yet, despite her willingness to consider another relationship, Moll is dissuaded by a practical, physiological impediment: "it was past the flourishing time with me when I might expect to be courted for a Mistress" (p. 189); "perhaps she might have helped me to a Spark, but my Thoughts were off of that kind of Livelihood, as being quite out of the way after 50" (p. 198).


It cannot be denied that Moll dismisses relationships as an option because she has reached menopause and is not as physically attractive to men as she had been. Satisfying the requirements of verisimilitude, Moll's "change of life" provides the necessary motivation for the redirec- tion of her energies. But, by compelling her to abandon a fruitless course of action, the introduction of this biological impediment also serves the discursive function of thwarting Moll's misguided intentions.

The fact that Moll renews her relationship with Jemy immediately following the conclusion of her criminal activities confirms that inhibiting further romantic entanglements was not intended to deny the importance of relationships for Moll's fulfilment. As we have seen, Jemy has been preselected as Moll's ideal mate. (The fact that she is destined to be with Jemy overdeternines the necessity for her celibacy during the interim.) Yet, given that the only objection to her union with Jemy is financial, the logic of the narrative requires that she suspend her quest for the ideal relationship in favour of overcoming that critical obstacle. In so far as Moll does not take part in a single adventure during this period that does not hold some promise of financial gain, Moll's pursuit of wealth subsumes the entire crime segment.

Underscoring the fact that Moll is required by logical necessities to enter a life of crime in spite of herself, she insists that she began stealing at the prompting of the "Devil"; she had, as she subsequently admits, "an evil Counsellor within ... prompting [her] to relieve [her] self by the worst means" (p. 193). She is driven to steal by the "Necessity of [her] Circumstances" (p. 193). a necessity that operates at the levels of both her story and the logic of her discourse. The fact that "Avarice" soon replaces "Necessity" as the impetus behind Moll's thefts confirms that the purpose of the crime segment is to enrich Moll, not simply to spare her from poverty: "but as Poverty brought me into the Mire, so Avarice kept me in" @. 203).

As she reminds us, again and again, throughout the segment devoted to her criminal exploits, she is driven by a theoretically insatiable desire to acquire ever more money:

my Measure was not yet fill'd up (p. 204):

yet the Resolution I had formerly taken of leaving off this homd Trade, when I had gotten a little more, did not return; but I must still get farther, and more (P 207);

for I had near 5001. by me in ready Money, on which I might have liv'd vely

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N M O L L FLANDERS 25

well, if I had thought fit to have retir'd; but I say, I had not so much as the least inclination to leave off (p. 221);

I could not forbear going Abroad again (p. 253).

The episodic structure of this section suggests that Moll's adventures are essentially interchangeable and indistinguishable experiences subor- dinated to a common purpose. Moll's only affair during this period is no more than a financial transaction and not different in essence from her other adventures. The adventures simply accumulate as so many deposits recorded in a ledger. The only variables are Moll's methodol- ogy and what John Richetti aptly terms "the permutations of profitable disguise,"" thereby emphasizing the commonality of "profit" underlying the superficial diversity. Yet, for all this diversity, the only appreciable change in Moll is that she becomes progressively inured to her life of crime, less susceptible to remorse, more efficient at acquiring wealth.

The sole purpose of this crime spree is to permit Moll to accumulate enough money to support herself in style henceforth. Once that thresh- old is reached, she can be arrested. By treating the arrest casually, the narrative makes it clear that it is merely fulfilling an internal necessity. The ease with which she is apprehended seems unworthy of "the greatest Artist" of crime (p. 214), and the narrative abridges her cap- ture as it does all unimportant events: "THAT I may make short of this black Part of this Story" (p. 272).

The Orchestration of Closure

Although Moll refers to her "sudden surprise" at finding Jemy in New- gate, his reappearance has been carefully planned. The novel can bring them together again now that she has "earned" the money they previously lacked. Once again betraying its underlying logic, the narrative easily sidesteps the inconvenience of their imprisonment by contriving for them and her fortune to be transported to America. The minister se- cures Moll's reprieve, and a "great Person" (p. 305) intercedes to save Jemy. In fact, the narrative betrays a touch of embarrassment with the flagrant artifices employed to achieve its purposes. As reassurance that there are limits to what will be done to accommodate the protagonists, Jemy, who protests being treated like a convict on the ship, is sternly re- minded that "he had had Favour enough, and ... that he ought to think

30 Richetti, p. 129.

26 EIOHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION

himself very well treated that he was not prosecuted a new" (p. 313). Reuniting Moll and Jemy under acceptable conditions also necessarily precipitates the conclusion of the narrative. As Peter Brooks has demonstrated, "once you have determined the right plot, plot is over."I1 The first half of the narrative describes Moll's quest for precisely this relationship; the second half fulfils the conditions necessary to enjoy it. Much like the final movement of a symphony, the concluding pages of Moll's narrative recapitulate the principal themes. By repeating that Jemy "was bred a Gentleman" (p. 328) and by helping "to make him appear, as he really was, a very fine Gentleman" (p. 340), Moll confirms that she has, through marriage, become a Gentlewoman at last. Moll's ad- mission that her momentary regret at having brought Jemy from England "was not hearty" also provides the opportunity to reaffirm that she "lov'd [her] Lancashire Husband entirely, as indeed [she] had ever done from the beginning" (p. 335). Moll's return to Virginia and the reappearance of her brother-husband illustrate at the level of the story the continu- ity between the conclusion of her narrative and her earlier experiences. Juxtaposing these two husbands reintroduces the choices that had earlier informed the narrative, the blinding and crippling of Moll's brother dramatizing the opposition to marriages based only on economic considerations. In dying, he suffers the same fate experienced by the two other husbands he resembles; by eliminating bigamy as a practical problem, his death also permits Moll's final confession to Jemy.

The conclusion of the narrative, in other words, provides considerable evidence that Moll has played out a scenario that had been prepared throughout the work. This intention is nowhere clearer than in Jemy's final remark in the narrative, which supports the rationale I have proposed for Moll's crimes: "who says I was deceiv'd, when I married a Wife in Lancashire? I think I have married a Fortune, and a very good Fortune too, says he" @. 341). Since a fortune had been the one thing lacking from their earlier relationship, Jemy intimates that time had essentially stood still while Moll fulfilled the conditions of their original contract.

The Exposure of Control

Ever since E.M. Forster emphatically characterized Moll Flanders as his "example of a novel in which a character is everything and is given freest play" and in which the author makes only "a slight attempt at plot," many

N A R R A T I V E LOGIC I N M O L L F L A N D E R S 27

approaches to the novel have insistently deferred to the heroine's predom- inance over the narrative?= One problem with this approach, however, is that it risks overstating Moll's complexity as a character. As James Thompson remarks, "Defoe's novels ... do not pose Austen's sort of rid- dles about what character is 'really like'; rather the questions that remain after we wonder how Cmsoe or Moll or Jack or Singleton will survive are what their place will be in the social scheme, what kind of status they will achieve, and whether they have been unfairly excluded."33 Patricia Meyer Spacks argues in similar terms that "characters in eighteenth-century fiction show less capacity for essential change than we like to believe is possible in life, and the limited possibilities for change they have depend on external kinds of learning about the world outside themselves."~ So, when Ian Watt asserts, against all the textual evidence to the contrary, that "we cannot be sure which of [her lovers] Moll preferred" and that Moll does not consider such "intangible concerns" as personal relationships "important or continuing elements of human life,'l5 he may well be responding to the fact that the narrative does not succeed in con- veying such emotions as essential concerns for Moll. Yet, Moll's failure to convince readers, for example, that she loves Jemy has no bearing on the evidence that her entire trajectory is informed by a desire for the relationship she enjoys with him at the end. The impression that she does not wholeheartedly espouse her own choices reflects her relative lack of so- phistication and complexity as a character-not misgivings about those choices.

Of course, since characters' "choices" are always, in the strictest sense, made for them, the issue hinges on a mastery of conventions sufficient to produce a suspension of disbelief. Thus, by creating the illusion that a character's choices reflect and result from a complex psychological reality, what a more developed conception of character masks is precisely this element of mastery underlying the composition. In contrast, Moll's-- and, by extension, Defoe's--failure to persuade readers of the sincerity of her emotional commitments has the effect of implying that she makes those choices in spite of herself. Ironically, the evidence that Moll's choices are determined by considerations independent of her will exposes

32 E.M. Fmter, Aspeca of the Novel (New York: Harcoun, Brace, and Wodd, 1927). p. 61. 33 James Thompson, BeMwcn Selfond World; The Novels of Jane Austen (University Park: Penn-

sylvania State University Res, 1988), p. 114. 34 Patricia Meyer Spacks, Imagining o Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth-Century Eng-

land (Cambridge: Harvard University b s s , 1976), p. 7.

35 The Rise of the Novel, p. 109.


the textual mechanisms controlling her discourse that I have described in this essay. It could be argued that Moll's superficiality as a character helps expose the logic controlling her discourse.

In conclusion, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge this work's resistance to divulging the discursive logic I have illustrated. Although this essay has produced evidence that the course of the narrative has been, at key moments, sufficiently determined by blatant artifice to suggest an insouciance about betraying-if not a willingness to expose-the work's fictionality, the power of this narrative's extreme moments nevertheless resides in their exceptionality. Unlike Fielding's, Defoe's flagrantly artificial moments do not constitute defining characteristics of his fiction. They emerge, like eruptions from a textual unconscious, only to be repressed by the countervailing impulse to naturalize events as Moll's authentic experiences. Hence, the tendency for Moll to treat such moments casually and for the many readers who consider this Moll's narrative to discount their disruptive implications. Yet, whether they are considered intentional or inadvertent, they resist subordination to the economy of the story. As such, they provide evidence that the novelist, as Spacks reminds us, always "has the characters more or less under his conscious or unconscious controP6-which designates a locus sufficiently flexible to accommodate the narrative logic that governs Moll Flanders.

Clemson University

36 Spacks, p. I I .

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