# Moll Flanders — Aspects of the Novel character guide

> Moll Flanders in Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Moll, Maria, Mamie

**First appearance:** 0005-iii-people

## Snapshot

Defoe's resourceful heroine, invoked as the isolated tree a critic can transplant — proof that some characters live free of the shrubbery that binds Austen's people.

## Who they are

Moll stands at the opposite pole from Miss Bates: a character so self-contained she can be lifted out of her book for the purposes of experiment without dragging a whole society with her. Forster uses her to show that Defoe's world is simpler than Austen's, because his heroine is not woven into a plot or a web of interdependent lives. She matters because she makes visible the difference between a character who merely parallels life and one who is bound to it by a hundred threads.

## Relationships

### [Chad Newsome](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/chad_newsome)

_social_

These characters appear in different novels by different authors, so their interaction is a meta-textual or analytical comparison.

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_psychological_

Moll Flanders is the protagonist whose life and thoughts are closely examined by the narrator.

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_psychological_

Moll Flanders is the protagonist whose life and thoughts are closely examined by the narrator.

## In the story

### [People](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/chapters/iii-people)

Used as a prime example of a character who is everything in her novel; Forster argues she feels absolutely real yet could never be encountered in daily life because she belongs to a world where the secret life is visible.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters/moll_flanders
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/aspects_of_the_novel_se/characters