Velarde 1 Kim Velarde Molly Ball ENL 10B-3 22 April 2015 Achieving Social Mobility in Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders explores the concept of social mobility and the difficulties associated with escalating one’s social status in a transitioning pre-modern to modern institution. In the beginning of the novel, Moll goes through several marriages in order to project herself into a higher class but despite everything she finds herself returning to her original state. By the end she finally achieves gentlewoman status not through marrying into wealth but through Moll’s own personal efforts; thus Defoe reveals what it means to truly transform oneself first in order to move forward. He expresses how social mobility is more than just achieving wealth. Social mobility also stems from being independent and resourceful as revealed through Moll breaking away from societal expectations revealing her resilient character, the progression of Moll’s various jobs in order to gain financial stability, and her voyage from London to the colonies in order to start fresh and redefine herself. Moll achieves social mobility through her resilient attitude against her strict society’s unwavering stance against social movement. When the audience is introduced to Moll, little is known about her besides the fact that she is an orphan and therefore part of the lower class. Even so she defies what society would expect from anyone in her situation as she aspires to rise among the ranks and become a gentlewoman. Her innocent definition of gentlewoman is, “one that does not go to service, to do house-work” (50). The diction associated with house-work reveal the negative archetypal roles for working women and how most working women were forced into
Velarde 2
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