Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Moll Flanders: Incest Discovered Viz. Defoe’s Ideal, or The Valuation of Sexualis in the Familiar

Sibling Rivalry: Suitor (He) & Moll

He: You I Love, and you alone.
Moll: And so in love says every one.
He: Virtue alone is an estate.
Moll: But money’s virtue, gold is fate.
He: I scorn your gold, and yet I love.
Moll: I’m poor: let’s see how kind you’ll prove.
He: Be mine, with all your poverty.
Moll: Yet secretly you hope I lie.
He: Let love alone be our debate.
Moll: She loves enough that does not hate.

The valuation of the family ideal cannot be defined outside the context of the ideal marriage; these two themes, family and marriage- intersect (respectively) time and time again in Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders. Defoe presents an ambivalent heroine who exudes sexualis-much like a room just sprayed with a sweet, yet biting fragrance. Defoe, viz. the plot turn of encountered incest between brother and his protagonist Moll, interjects with a scene of taboo (somewhat sensational) in order to define what the aforementioned ideal is not. The subject of incest, that intercourse between persons so closely related that forbids their marriage viz. the natural law, is the medium Defoe utilizes to illuminate the portrayal of Moll’s sexuality. A closer analysis of Moll’s incestual romp yields an interwoven theme of institutionalized authority throughout the novel where conventional morality is pitted against instinctive reaction; the two co-exist and exchange. It is by incorporating this significant thread that the tapestry of the ideal family is positioned into, according to Ellen Pollak, “the kinship’s persistent force.” To ignore this position is to ill-define these ideals and one could argue-to forego Defoe’s intended meaning of sexuality within his British novel.

If ignorance were bliss, then Moll Flanders would have played her wild card well into a straight flush, however our heroine finds herself trumped in the worse way. Moll is a woman of the criminal mind receiving training from like-minded individuals, and yet she is a woman in constant search of financial and marital felicity-to further her gains. She gains assistance from the captain’s lady, a woman assuming the role of friend and mother, in finding a suitable companion and upon acquiescing, submits to her direction:
“I told her as I had reason to do, that I would give myself wholly to her directions, and that I would have neither tongue to speak, or feet to step, in that affair, but as she should direct me.” It is because of this “other” direction that it can be argued Moll finds herself in the predicament of marrying her brother in the first place. Defoe, in exposing Moll’s character, displays her to have no control of speech (communication) or ability to maneuver through such an affair. Here, the verbal choice on “affair” plays into a pun, or word-play and foreshadows the woes of incest and Moll’s sexuality. Furthermore, upon exposing her naked psyche she confesses “how doubly criminal it was to deceive such a man”. The crime is “doubled” because it concerns an attack against lawful marriage and its deception upon institutional authority. Her deception leads to a crisis in defining the family ideal while exposing the problems of conventional morality.

The problems of conventional morality find their true root in the objections of instinctive reactions from Moll, and as such support justification of a more instinctive, natural means. For Moll, the news, from her mother-in-law, “to her horror” was enough to awaken shock and repulsion. This repulsion however was not a reaction to sin or transgression against conventional morality, but an instinctive outcry to an ill-defined ideal or institution. Moll is no stranger to crime. In fact, she displays typical avarice as motive towards her crimes of thievery and whoredom. However, she reacts to her condition and concludes that her incest “had been no crime to have lain with my husband, since to his being my relation, I had known nothing.” Moreover, this proof of her justification and lack of penitence can be found where “she did not tell anyone of her horrible discovery, but was terribly oppressed by it”, to reveal more of her troubled mind. Once more, Moll describes herself to be “afraid, that if she told, she would be divorced without being believed, and left helpless far from her native land. Thus she lived for three years.” Defoe exposes the psyche of his frail, pseudo-eponymous protagonist to fear the act of divorcement-an attack against institutionalized and sanctified marriage, and being sent to the mad-house in Virginia away from the familiar surroundings of England. This is the only place in the novel by which Moll, through many encounters with men and wedded unions, finds herself afraid of separation. The topic is loneliness apart from the familiar-England; the subject is Moll. Again, this separation is one against marital togetherness. This is part of the ideal. Though the two are siblings, Moll is aware of the importance of separation, despite continued “whoredom and incest” for three more years, and in an emotive, suppressed state-desires direction through her distressed condition. However, this time the counsel is from her mother whose opinion it was, “that I [Moll] should bury the whole thing entirely, and continue to live with him as my husband, till some other event should make the discovery of it more convenient.” This maternal opinion proves a direct blow to conventional morality and supports the instinctive reaction of Moll’s viewpoint as one that contradicts such tolerance:
“But then it was this misfortune too, that my mother’s opinion and mine were quite different from one another, and indeed inconsistent with one another”.
Defoe presents two distinct viewpoints upon the subject of incest in order to portray the notion that the family ideal supports and is in need of clear institutional authority. Why? Left up to the mother Moll would live a life where “in the mean time she would endeavor to reconcile us together again, and restore our mutual comfort and family peace […] and so let the whole matter remain secret as close as death…” This death, argues Defoe, juxtaposes the ideal of family and peace in lieu of secrecy and lying; there is usurpation from the institutionalized familiar in exchange for the blurring of the ideal. These two subsets are not meant to co-exist, but they do because of the dichotomized accents of sex and love, or incest and family found throughout the novel. The subject of the blurred ideal is clarified in the instinctive reactions of Defoe’s protagonist, and leads to a better understanding and support of the institution of family maintenance.

Moll, upon further conversations with her mother, finally admits to telling her brother everything in spite of maintaining family ruin. This divulgement is necessary towards a regaining of stability in Moll’s life and in a bigger manner towards the reconciliation between conventional morality and instinctive natural reaction.

The triangular web of response to the subject of incest illuminates each character’s method of thought and assists to define the novel’s over-arching themes of morality, family, and marriage. The mother wants to cover up the scandal, the husband/brother wants to remove the scandal by killing himself, and Moll senses departure from the scandal altogether as the best option; all three characters carefully construct their biased interpretations of the aforementioned themes. The subject of incest is seen as wrong, and although this point is not in question-why this is so, is! The subject of the family, its legacy or ideal, and the staying-power of marriage are inter-locked and prove resilient in defending institutional authority. The subject of morality, conventional and naturally instinctive, is polar opposites-yet serves the other for the common goal of defining Moll’s sexuality. Again, these three characters agree as one under the banner of family (mother to her children), and yet none can co-exist to bring about its fruition-for they are all at odds and caught in the complexity of incest. This disparity assists to promote, indirectly, what the ideals should be and affirm its authority on what it should not be.

The nature of family and the marital ideal is blurred by the complexity of incest. This act of inadvertent taboo plunges the distinction and definition of the institution into both crisis and chaos. The quality of its redefinition is found in Moll’s sexuality, ignorance, and defiance to conventional morality by utilizing that instinct which is most natural to her. She is not a perfect protagonist, epitomizing morality in its highest regard, but proves to be a far better example when faced with such a crime against the familiar and its institutions. Defoe provides a willing host to promote his views on human sexuality in lieu of the sensationalism of incest. This is not added into the novel to generate sales only, but to instruct and touch upon the chords of morality, the ideals of marriage and family life and maintenance, and exposure and threats towards defining institutional authority.

Daniel Defoe presents a female protagonist capable of great natural, moral task in light of inadvertent scandal- but with shortcomings in which the family unit suffers. Though this family suffers it is a true testament of what should not be. Beyond the discovery of such vice- proves to identify and par Moll in support of the institutional authority of family. The subject of Moll’s sexuality argues for the establishment of instinctive and conventional morality threaded towards “a persistent force”, namely that of kinship ties and the instinct exchange. It is because of this exchange, not in spite of it, that Defoe presents his readers with a view upon, and argues- for his intended meaning of mollified, sexuality.

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