Molling It All Over

Well, to be perfectly honest, I cannot say that this was a particularly enjoyable read…but the frustrating thing is that I am unable to articulate just exactly why that is…I mean, when I read the full title, my first thought was ‘well, I know the whole plot – now what?’ and yet, that isn’t really what bothered me. I suppose that helps to link it to the New Gate records and broadsheets; reading up on someone about to be hanged already has a pretty predictable ending to it too. Perhaps it is just that I expected that, since what Moll did was no surprise, howshe did it, the way the narrative unravelled itself, would be riveting.

Sadly, I was wrong.

 I found myself checking off, not only all of the clauses in the title as they happened, but all the common features of the New Gate readings as well. A countdown is never the best attitude for book reading. However, I didn’t find it to be completely a lost cause. In the title itself, I am decidedly pleased with the order of her actions, she who “at last grew rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent.” Living honestly and remaining penitant are made conditional by this chronology on her having first grown rich. It reminds me of Jane Eyre’s or Becky Sharp’s musings on how easy it would be to be good with a large enough income.  Even the description of her moment of revelation reeks of insincerity and social self-awareness, for the woman who felt “a secret and surprising Joy at the Prospect of being a true Penitent, and obtaining the Comfort of a Penitent, I mean the hope of being forgiven” (285). For a true, earnest penitence, it seems to me that the overwhelming sense of joy should spring from a love of, and desire for service toward, God, but not so for Moll. She delights in having the recognized title of “Penitent,” and although she decides to rephrase and emphasize her new-found hope for forgiveness, it is still a desire for reward which spurs her to action and gives her comfort. Even her interaction with God is one of commerce. Also, this seems to gain support by the word ‘secret,’ rather than, say ‘personal’ to qualify her joy; on one level at least, Moll is aware that such a feeling is not what her good minister might wish from her in this process of conversion.

So it appears to me that, in Defoe’s work, penitence, just like everything else that money could procure for the comfort of those in prison, was a luxury for the wealthy.  This idea of penitence as a commodity fit only for the rich is echoed in the nature of the crimes for which most of the New Gate prisoners were incarcerated, being those driven by poverty and committed only for a subsistence existence. Only for the wealthy is there any real cause for penitence as well. Of course, I recognize that is a sweeping generalization, but it works for me at this moment.

Finally, although this has positively no academic merit whatsoever, did anyone else find the need to stop before saying “Maud Flanders” instead? I mean, is it possible to get more starkly opposed pictures of Christian femininity?

                   

Hmm, actually…now that I think about it, Ned’s words to her as a memorial (thank you Wikisimpsons…) “She taught us the joy of shame and the shame of joy” ties in shockingly well with my point about the cynicism to be found in Moll’s words of repentance {almost as if I planned it that way…}, who revels in telling the tale of her ‘shameful’ deeds and whose only transformation goes no further than to infuse that joy with a tinge of shame.