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1- Comment on the representation of the female in the works of Defoe Moll Flanders and Austen
Persuasion.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the representation of the female in two well-known
novels: Moll Flanders of Daniel Defoe and Persuasion of Jane Austen. The two novelists
manage to represent their female characters differently. On one hand, Defoe shows a smart,
beautiful and brave woman who is always willing to take risks and has the capacity to survive
even when she has everything against her. On the other hand, Austen exploits a more sensitive
woman: Anne Elliot, the heroine, who has gone through a process of self-discovery and she has
become a woman of thought and sense. She is as clever and beautiful as Moll Flanders. Whether
we refer to Anne Elliot from Persuasion or to Moll Flanders of Defoe, we can safely say that
these female characters do not think or behave according to the expected from the woman of
the eighteenth century. Neither of them are the usual woman. Although both heroines are
very limited by the constraints of their gender, social status and geographical context, both
authors manage to make these women stand out from the rest, whether it is because of their
courage (Moll Flanders) or because of their deep, analytical thoughts (Anne Elliot).
Moll Flanders was a woman living in an extreme capitalist London in the eighteenth century. It
is necessary to understand life in the capitalist system for the middle-classes in order to
understand the complexity or Molls character. In the world of Moll Flanders money seems to
be everything. People can be ranked according to how much money they have. It is a form of
identification within the big city. Moll Flanders is aware of the characteristics of her world and
she knows about the advantages and the possibilities of the big city. She is aware that social
movements are possible in the system and at the end she proves that a woman can move up by
being able to []able to work for myself, and get enough to keep me without that terrible
bugbear going to service []
1
But of course Moll Flanders is not a common woman. She has a
special personality which allows her to have certain freedom in her life, in the sense that it is
herself who makes the decisions for her life.
So which are the characteristics in Molls personality that ultimately allowed her to move up? As
we mentioned before, intelligence was the main ingredient. This intelligence, mixed with her
poor morals and her strong courage, is what makes her successful at the end. She has the ability

1
Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe, paragraph 35
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of lying and manipulating people, even us readers, to get what she wants. She is a liar
throughout the novel and although we readers tend to justify her immoral actions saying she
needed to survive or because of her horrible childhood, some of her actions are just
reprehensible. The limit that separates justifiable and non-justifiable actions is smooth in Moll
Flanders. It is true that she is a real fighter and that she never gives up, even when she had
everything against her, even when she was a poor desolate girl without friends, without clothes,
without help or helper in the world2 . She is successful because she is smarter than most of the
people she meets, especially men. She surely knows how to conquer a man, how to use her
body and her beauty to seduce him, how to steal without being caught This is a characteristic
of women which can either reinforce womens good reputation or backfire it. If we accept that
women are cleverer than men we are accepting that men are dominated by women in a society
that is thought to be one hundred percent ruled by men.
In Jane Austens Persuasion, Anne Elliot is our heroine. In opposition to Moll Flanders world,
Annes world is the countryside. She was born in a wealthy and distinct family and she has lived
all her life in the countryside. She does not know anything else. Anne Elliot is part of a gentile
circle of distinguished people (lower nobility and liberal professionals) where money is not the
one and only element in order to categorize a person: elements such as face, marriage, place to
live; family, etc. have to be considered as well. As part of this circle Anne has the pressure that
any woman (without a male in the family to support her) in this circle has: finding a husband or
taking the risk of becoming some mans mistress. These women are not supposed to think. In
these circles there is not room for social mobility. This is one of the main constraints of Annes
life. In this sense Molls Flanders world is better for an ambitious woman. Anne Elliot is a very
clever young woman but has not opportunity of showing this intelligence. However, our heroine
is not the only clever women. In fact, most of the women in this story seem to be clever such as
Lady Russell, Annes mother Lady Elliot and Mrs. Croft. In contrast to womens intelligence Jane
Austen describes a very stupid, careless and vain Sir. Elliot; and a very irresponsible Charles
Musgrove.
In Persuasion we see a very sensitive and spiritually mature Anne Elliot, who frees herself
from an authoritarian father to be, as far as the constraints permit her, independent. Women in

2
Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe, paragraph 4.
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these times were expected to be decorative, extremely beautiful but useless: It is, perhaps, our
fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our
feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business
of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and
change soon weaken impressions 3Jane Austen shows a very clever Anne Elliot, who has ability
to think about almost everything. The author is very concerned about the situation of women:
the lack of interest and things were the characteristics of a woman in those times. Through
Anne, Austen exposes her thoughts about men and their advantage in matters of education and
contribution to the society: Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.
Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.4
In conclusion, both heroines are women who are not what we would expect from a woman of
the eighteenth century. They are both extremely clever women who manage (in one way or the
other) to somehow break with this role of women. Feminism is present throughout both novels.
Authors (and specially Jane Austen) use their female characters to make social demands. These
novels show how hard it was for any woman, in the city or in the countryside, to be independent
and have free will. Constraints for women and society in general are present in both pieces of
work. In my opinion, some of these constraints are present in our society now-a-days. We still
rank people according to their education and social status, we still ask older people for advice,
we still have to find a suitable partner (husband) for our life, we still want to move up in society
and have a better social position, we still justify peoples actions according to their situation and
childhood, etc. The main difference is probably that now women can have practically any job,
although there are, still now-a-days, some prejudices and some fear toward intelligent and
successful women.

3
Persuasion, Jane Austen, Volume 2, paragraph 18
4
Persuasion, Jane Austen, Volume 2, paragraph 27