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RADING (Blight) - My favourite book - Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (moll_flanders_by_d.defoe.doc)

Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

        One of the best books I have read recently was „Moll Flanders“ or, give it the full name, „The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders“ by Daniel Defoe.           It is a novel – maybe a historical one, perhaps an adventure story and sometimes humorous, too and I read it because of the main character – I admire the female heroine Moll and her defiance of conventional feminine roles and I also like the way Defoe depicted the inner conflict between what you know is moral and what you need to do to survive.

         „Moll Flanders“ is first-person narration in the form of memoirs of the fall and eventual redemption of a lone woman in the 17th century society. The story is set mainly in England but there are also few episodes set in Virginia, USA. The story follows the life and adventures of the girl Moll from the day of her birth to the age of seventy.

        Moll, born as an orphan, lives a varied and exciting life, moving through an astonishing number of marriages and affairs and becoming a highly successful professional criminal before her eventual retirement and repentance.  At the beginning of the book, Moll tells us about her origin and her childhood. Then, the story continues with her experiences in a wealthy family, her relationships with men and her five marriages. The whole second part of the book deals with Moll’s life as a prostitute and a well-known thief and criminal. At the end, Moll describes her experiences in the New Gate Prison and her last years as a rich woman on a plantation in America where she lived with her second husband.

        I found the book very interesting although it is a little bit difficult to read because        of the old type of English but it has a moving action and some of its moral lessons are valuable till today.

        Daniel Defoe was a really prolific writer who would turn his hand to almost any topic; he has been called the father of journalism. He wrote over five hundred books, pamphlets and journals on a wide range of topics including politics, crime, religion, geography, marriage, psychology and the supernatural and is perhaps best known for his fiction “The Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”. His Moll Flanders is a well-written novel and I would recommend it to anyone who likes strong, intelligent and self-sufficient woman.