The art of realism : the source of Defoe’s composition of moll Flanders

Abstract EN

This study investigates the basic sources of Defoe’s narrative in his famous novel Moll Flanders.

Taking into account the social circumstances of British life in the Eighteenth-Century during which Defoe composed the novel, together with the views of scholars about the origin of Moll Flanders, this paper explains that the material of Moll Flanders is drawn from contemporary life experienced by the author.

Contrary to some critical beliefs, Defoe, the paper asserts, as is the case in most of his other writings, does not rely solely upon his invention in writing Moll Flanders.

Rather, he models his story on actual episodes that he lived and witnessed.

Several critics contend that Defoe based Moll Flanders on an original character and they attempt to show the close similarity in the circumstance of each.

This critical approach towards Moll’s identity underscores the realistic verisimilitude in the novel in the sense that its paraphernalia corresponds very precisely to the world that Defoe knew.

However, the paper does not take Moll’s identity for an original; instead, it asserts that her personality and history are realistic duplicates of facets of Eighteenth-Century English life with which Defoe was so familiar.

The study concludes that Defoe’s solidity of specification in his journalistic description of character, and his rendition of actual physical environments, proves him the typical realist who imitates authentic human experience.