Fiction

Moll Flanders is an eighteenth-century novel by Daniel Defoe. It was first published in 1722, and it is about the adventures of Moll, a poor young woman from London who becomes a criminal by necessity to support her illegitimate child.

She becomes a thief, pickpocket, and prostitute. Eventually, she finds redemption through her religious faith. There are two main characters in this novel. One is Moll. The other is Flanders, who represents the “real world.” Both of these characters are shown through the eyes of a third-person narrator. The novel follows the pattern of the picaresque novel.

It also has elements of realism, fantasy, and satire. The picaresque novel has a lot of historical roots. These include the 1540s novel Don Quixote de la Mancha and the 1560s work The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Picaresque novels follow the life of a protagonist (or protagonists) who struggles to get by in a harsh world. They typically show the protagonist’s struggle against social injustice and poverty.

These novels can be satirical or realistic. They often involve some degree of fantasy. The picaresque novel is sometimes described as a “social novel.” This is because it deals with the “real” world. The protagonist is often a commoner, rather than a nobleman. The picaresque novel is also often described as a “feminist novel”.