One of the most significant characteristics of Defoe's Moll Flanders is his inclusion of perspective. Moll Flanders is herself, the narrator. She has been through a lot and she writes with tremendous perspective on how the world works and what hazards there are. She writes as an older woman who has lived her life in effort of jumping social classes. She was born in Newgate prison and after many misadventures, prison terms and failed relationships, she ends up being married relatively happily and free from prison. Moll Flanders draws the reader into the narrative of her criminal life by way of her language. Her characteristic discourse, special pleading, is clearly appropriate to her attempts at self vindication. But it also derives meaning from her status as convicted felon. Moll, the narrator, is also a woman with a "record," inscribed in the annals of the Old Bailey and Newgate prison, a purely juridical text she cannot overlay with her own. Moll Flanders is Moll's personal text, a counter-text to contest the public record, an example of special pleading, not only after the fact of her crime but also after conviction and sentence. It is a plea in mitigation made to the court of her readership.
Defoe depicts eighteenth-century society as a large marketplace where people struggle to survive. In this struggle, it is difficult to remain moral. Yet, for all his interest in this theme, Defoe came from a Puritan background which urged him to use his works to teach moral lessons. Thus, he approaches Moll's criminal activities and her other immoral actions with a didactic intent. In the Preface, he clearly states that the story of Moll is true and that he has taken all possible care not to give "lewd ideas" through Moll's story. On the contrary, Defoe urges the reader to see the story as an example of repentance. Here the author is torn between his artistry as a narrator who is able to fascinate audiences with Moll's energy and immoral tricks and his Christian beliefs that point to the fact that Moll has to repent in order to be acceptable as a character.
In another passage of the Preface, Defoe returns to Moll's robberies and justifies their detailed descriptions as a warning to his readers against theft and robbers. Here again the Puritan background of the author influences his thoughts as Moll's criminal activities are given an educational relevance for the readers to prevent such behaviors.
Moll's perspective in all of this comes from her experiences. She has tremendous knowledge about all of society. She is a lower class citizen and criminal, but she has lived with and even married higher class men. Defoe even includes an episode in which she is conned out of her money by a con-man whom she was trying to con herself. She knows the games of all social classes and what it takes to survive in the world.
For example, in talking about relationships with men, she says:
On the contrary, the Women have ten Thousand times the more Reason to be wary, and backward, by how much the hazard of being betrayed is the greater; and would the Ladies consider this, and act the wary Part, they would discover every Cheat that offered; for, in short, the Lives of very few Men now a-Days will bear a Character; and if the ladies do but make a little Enquiry, they will soon be able to distinguish the Men, and deliver themselves.
As illustrated here, Moll speaks from experience. She is one of the women that have seen the "hazard of being betrayed." Defoe's use of this perspective adds verisimilitude to the work as a whole.
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