Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders in the 18th century.

It depicts many aspects of the society

of that time: Role of women, class difference, life of criminals, male dominance and so on.
Despite the fact that the novel was written three centuries ago, surprisingly, even today, it
remains topical from many standpoints and is not only related to our times, but also carries
universal meanings in a broader context.

For instance, the issues faced by Moll during the course of novel are of universal nature
and value and are likely to be faced by any person of such status as she was. Taking
poverty, for example. Moll was born poor and then left orphan. She had neither money to
live upon nor family to support her. Were Moll born to an elite family, her life would never
have been the way it was. All her problems were mostly because of this reason that she
was poor. First poverty itself, and then the fear of poverty led her to all the evil acts and
temptations including; prostitution and theft. This poverty still exists and leads many
women to the profession of prostitution. Mostly the prostitutes are from a poor
background and are mainly there because of poverty, and having no other means of
earning.

the most probable answer that we would get would be that they were poor and could find
no other means of earning.

This leads us to another problem that is unemployment. Women had no job opportunities
in the 18th century. Their life was wholly depended on men. The only option for them was
to get married and live by the earning of their husband. Furthermore, even for marriage
Women had to be either rich or beautiful. This problem, though much reduced, still prevails
in our society. Women are not independent. They are not allowed to earn for themselves
and are married at an early age by their parents. Along with unemployment, unfortunately,
even in the 21th century, beauty still surpasses character and is still a necessity for a
woman.

Moving on to the later part of Moll’s life when she got into the profession of thievery. we
see that Moll was born in a jail to a criminal. That’s the reason why her ending up into a
thief isn’t much surprising because very rarely we see that the children of a criminal
become great persons.