Discuss with detailed reference to two works, the discrepancy which there appears to

be between Defoes declared serious moral purpose and the content of the works
themselves.
Although most of Defoes works are supposed to be true life accounts narrated by
the characters themselves these characters seem to have been used as a disguise of
Defoe himself in his effort to convey his moral beliefs indirectly. What is interesting
is that there appears to be an internal conflict in the texts which derive from his
puritan background, on the one hand, and his belief in the importance of the trade and
economy on the other. Because of the former it could be said that the events in the
novels, which occur in a horizontal socio-temporal background, are subordinated into
a vertical temporality characterised by a timeless religious morality. The latter,
however, makes him stray from his original intention towards a mixed doctrine that
tries to compromise religion with newly emerging socio-economic factors such as
trade which leads society towards economic individualisation. Apart from the above
considerations, this essay will attempt to consider whether it is possible for authors to
control the meaning of their work and whether the narrative method adopted by Defoe
can be conducive towards a serious moral purpose.
As for Defoes intended moral purpose this can be traced in his Preface to Moll
Flanders where he claims that it is chiefly recommended to those who know how to
read it, and how to make good use of it. More importantly he goes on to say that it is
to be hoped that such readers will be more pleased with the Moral than the Fable
and with the End of the Writer than with the life of the Person written of. Finally, he
hopes that from every part of the book something may be learned and some just and
religious inference is drawn. From all this it can be deduced that Defoes intended
purpose is to guide the reader towards a specific religious reading.

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This religious element is evident in his most of his works. In Robinson Crusoe, for
example, the narrator, who sees things in retrospection, sees himself as a kind of a
Prodigal Son whose first going on board a ship is seen as a breach of [his] duty to
God and [his] father. There are also often-repeated references to Providence and fate
where the narrator thinks that everything that has happened to him was predetermined
so that he could find his true self through repentance. For example, after having
survived the wreck in his first attempt to go to sea he does not heed the captains
advice not to pursue this profession because he will suffer. What is more, most of the
things that happen are attributed to divine intervention. The sudden appearance of
corn, for example, makes him believe that God had miraculously caused this grain to
grow and from that moment he starts searching for other signs of this divine
providence.
What is more important, perhaps, is that even psycho-somatic phenomena like his
dream of the man coming down in flames and accusing him of not having repented
yet are seen in a strictly religious light. It comes as no surprise then the fact that after
this dream Crusoe says his first prayer, he starts reading the Bible adopting the habit
of opening it at random and catching the first phrase that he sees using it as words of
advice directly spoken to him by God. He also comes to believe that deliverance has
to do with conscience rather than physical limitations and that he can be happier in the
prison of the island than in the freedom of the familiar world. Despite all this, the
fact that he returns to the familiar world is strongly suggested to have been effected
through his sincere repentance.
Notwithstanding the moral intentions of the text, there are certain elements in the
content which contradict it. First of all the breach of his duty to his father, which he
mentions as the cause of his misfortunes, should be considered in respect to the

3
doctrine of the middle state of life. Since the narration is done in retrospection and
the fact that the narrator himself considers his misfortunes as a means for achieving
repentance f or not heeding his fathers injunctions it should be expected that he has
eventually reconsidered his whole life. Consequently, the narrative should normally
focus on his quiet, middle-of-state life. However, Crusoe disposes of his family life in
a paragraph where we are informed that he married, he had three children and
following his wifes death he concludes the paragraph with his decision to go to sea
again. What this seems to suggest is that he has not truly repented for his misfortunes,
which should remind us that his so called repentance was achieved when he was
seriously ill and he was afraid of dying, making the issue of his change rather
ambiguous.
Considering the above it should come as no surprise that what probably Crusoe is
most remembered for is not for dubious repentance but for the adventures he had and
his resourcefulness which enabled him to survive. We remember things like his
attempts to make a boat out of a single tree, his realising how difficult it is and what
work is involved in the making of bread and household things like pieces of furniture
and his failure to make a cask. Events like his witnessing of cannibalism and his
eventual escape leave a lasting impression on the readers mind. Finally, what perhaps
has the stronger effect on the reader is the fact that out of all his misfortunes he
manages to acquire financial success which makes him a respectable member of
society. The irony behind this is that he has managed to climb higher in the social
ladder than his fathers middle state of life, which makes the contradiction between
Defoes intention and the actual treatment and content of the novel even more
ambivalent.

4
More or less the same tension between Defoes purpose seems to apply to Moll
Flanders as well. Apart from the things mentioned above concerning Defoes Preface
he also stresses the fact that the original of this Story is put into new words and that
all possible Care has been taken to give no lewd Ideas strongly suggests that Moll
is a disguise for Defoe, which enables him to pursue his own interpretation of the
story. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the text is permeated with
religious, moralistic comments and events are interpreted in such a light. There is, for
example, Molls attempt to attribute everything that befalls her to her being tempted
by the devil. While she is courted by the elder brother of the family she lives with she
uses the Garden-of Eden imagery where the apple is transformed into a note.
Moreover, when she has married the younger brother, Robin, although she does not
love him, she believes that she committed adultery and incest in her mind every day.
Her first theft is also described in such a way as if the devil himself has prompted her
to do it. Finally, there is the issue of her true repentance, which is supposed to be the
culminating point of the novel. After that her fortune changes completely enabling her
to live a respectable life and find happiness with her fourth thief-husband, who has
truly repented as well. From all this, Defoe seems to suggest that people, at some
point of a major crisis in their lives, should seriously reconsider their past action and
truly repent according to the precepts of Christian ideology.
However, Defoes treatment of the issue of repentance is rather dubious. First of
all, Molls repentance, which is miraculously followed by the reprieve, comes
immediately after the sudden repentance of the Governess and more importantly at a
time when she knows that she is about to be executed. This, of course, makes it
somewhat ambivalent because Moll repents when she has come to believe that there
are no other alternatives for her. The horror of death leaves her no other choice.

5
Another important issue is that her future happiness consists of material wealth as
well just like in the case of Robinson Crusoe. It is no coincidence that her husband
truly repents when he learns from Moll that they are going to be comfortably off.
What Defoe seems to suggest is that true repentance can provide happiness not only in
the afterlife but in this world as well, which consists of financial affluence. In other
words, Defoe seems to consider poverty and happiness incompatible, which, of
course, is not very compatible with the essence of the Christian doctrine which
preaches humbleness. This could be accounted to the fact that Defoe strongly believed
in

the

significance

of

economy

in

social

and

an

individual

level.

Another discrepancy has to do with the fact that Moll, just like Crusoe, is mostly
remembered for her eventful life and especially her career as a thief, which brings us
to the issue of Defoes narrative method.
Defoes narrative method is focused in the representation of extraordinary events
snatched at random from the temporal process of the characters lives. It is no
coincidence that phrases like it happened that, suddenly are very common in both
novels because this kind of narration develops mainly adventure time. Defoes
intention could be better accomplished through representations of intense internal
conflict. In both novels, however, the main esoteric struggles revolve around
repentance presented in religious terms. Other kinds of conflict are either very scarce
or hardly existent. For example, when Crusoe mentions that he underwent an intense
internal conflict after his fathers injunctions not to go to sea and ruin his life, he does
not feel any need whatsoever to narrate it. As far as Moll is concerned, her internal
struggles have mainly to with her doubts of marrying Robin and the revelation of
incest to her mother and her brother/husband, which are not treated fully and, anyway,
they are lost in the thread of the eventful episodes.

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In conclusion, it could be said that the incongruity between Defoes moral
intentions and the content of his novels seems to derive from his own ambiguity
concerning his beliefs. On the one hand, he appears to suggest that humanity has lost
its way, which can be corrected through sincere repentance. In other words, the
change that humanity has to undergo is to reacquire a lost ideal, which is based on the
Christian ideology. On the other hand, however, he has to admit that worldly matters
like material wealth are essential. As a result the image of humanity that Defoe
presents is rather ambivalent. Even if both Crusoe and Molls status changes rapidly,
they themselves seem to have remained unchanged.