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TRANSCRIPT
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