The Look of

Moll Flanders

A pictorial aid to envisioning Defoe’s world

Dr. Nick Melczarek ENGL 252 Aspects of the Novel

Newgate Prison, London

Inner prison gate

Newgate yard hanging

Newgate cell

Correlate with John Hall’s “Hell on Earth” PDF

Newgate Prison, London corroborate with Hall’s

“Hell on Earth”

(this image actually from Hogarth’s series The Rake’s Progress, [1734

engraving based on earlier 1733 painting])

Servants’ clothing in wealthy English households,

Hogarth, Heads of Six Servants c.1750

(late 1600s-early1700s)

“Gentlewoman” “Lady of Quality”

Hogarth, Olivia Fenton, Duchess of Bolton (1740-50)

“Gentlewoman” “Lady of Quality”

“Gentlewoman” “Lady of Quality”

“Flanders” lace Money around your neck

and wrists

Remember that everything in this time period is made by hand. The best-quality lace was produced in Flanders (today’s lower Netherlands and upper Belgium). So – how was real lace made, and why was it such a sign of wealth?

Real lace is made by creating a pattern,

inserting pins into it, and then knotting

out that pattern around the pins with

hundreds of small bobbins, weaving over

and under – the thread being either silk,

linen flax, or cotton. It took hundreds of

hours to make good-quality lace, so it was

very expensive, and a way to display one’s

wealth on one’s person.

So, imagine how

much it must have

cost to create the

ornate sleeves and

ruffled collars of the

time period.

££££££!!!!!!

£ = symbol for British pound,

English currency

Even moderately-wealthy people

and the emerging “middle class”

tried to afford some bit of lace,

such as the commonly-worn lace

shoulder-length collar, cap, and

sleeve ends shown here.

So—when Moll adopts the name

“Flanders,” what does that name

indicate both to us (readers) and

to people in Moll’s own world (in

the diegesis)?

Alex Kingston as

Moll (left) during

the Colchester

episode, 1996

BBC production

“Gentleman” “Man of Quality”

“Gentleman” “Man of Quality”

“Vanity is the perfection of a Fop” --Moll on the Linen-Draper

fop = n. One [always male] who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his appearance, dress, or

manners; a dandy, an exquisite. (from the verb fop “to act like a fool,” from Old French fat, Latin fatuus = “fool”, thereby a specifically gendered

insult indicating lack of “masculine” self-unconcern but excess of “feminine” self-concern , vanity, and social

affectation; also implying a shallow character and superficial intellect and set of interests )

The English Colonies in the New World, and the indenturment system

Correlate with online documents on indenture

The city of Bath, England

Correlate to PDF Secrest’s “Bumptious Bath: The

Town that Beau Nash Built.”

Alex Kingston* as Moll during the

Bath sequence, 1996 BBC production

* Yes – Dr. River Song on Doctor Who!

Cheapside, London

At the time in which Moll Flanders is set, London, England, (along with Paris, in

France) was one of the most populous cities in Europe, vastly crowded, with

narrow streets remaining from the Middle Ages. Not until the Great fire of 1666

destroyed large parts of the central city would the city “modernize” into the

footprint it still carries today. Nevertheless, it was the heart of English/British

culture, with theatres, palaces, restaurants, inns, and above all gambling houses.

Cheapside, London

Multiple social ills plagued the vast

population of London: debt and

bankruptcy from gambling,

alcoholism (gin and rum being

relatively plentiful); prostitution

(both sexes); sexually-transmitted

diseases (a great number of the

population carried syphilis);

malnutrition; theft, rape, mugging

Hogarth, Gin Lane (1751), the artist’s exaggerated

allegorical work on the “evils” of drinking gin (as

opposed to the “merits” of drinking beer)

images

Newgate prison door: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/4d/58/48/4d5848a80fbb64e469f361de898bbc7d.jpg

Newgate prison cell: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/c1/16/4c/c1164cb1f3cd38e51419f027e3063839.jpg

Newgate yard hanging: http://lowres-picturecabinet.com.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/29/main/5/138303.jpg

English servant clothing: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/b9/89/21/b98921b6e7a5a17f67ed96fbb60cfc47.jpg

Gentlewoman/Lady of Quality: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c3/74/02/c37402062f6c0fb9d6bcde8fd521ea23.jpg

Gentlewomen/Lady of Quality:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/b9/89/21/b98921b6e7a5a17f67ed96fbb60cfc47.jpg