Nancy Traubitz

Introduction

This interdisciplinary unit engages high school students in the study of life in the American colonies and is appropriate for both English and American history classes. Daniel Defoe was an observant journalist who recorded historical events and also created imaginative truths; thus his novel serves as both artifact and source. Although he never visited the American colonies, his famous creation, Moll Flanders, spends two periods there, first as the wife of a respected sea captain and planter, who turns out to be her brother, and later as a convicted thief who connives to be transported to Virginia, along with her true love, a highwayman.

Moll tells us on the title page she was “Born in NEWGATE, and during a Life of continu’ed Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest, and died a Penitent.” We meet her as a child of three, dependent on the charity of the parish, and we leave her a rich woman of almost seventy, returned to London from her plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and writing under a pseudonym until “I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am” (1).

Although I have used Moll Flanders in an Advanced Placement English course in a unit on “women warriors” and emigration literature, I have found it to be a text that captivates students’ interest in colonial era history as well. The novel allows students to see life in the American colonies from the viewpoint of an experienced but far from perfect human being who travels to the New World anxious to begin a new life. Students find her a fascinating guide to the era, but perhaps more importantly, they also quickly come to view her as a human being facing adventures in a setting as new to her as the surface of Mars is to them. Her story further brings history alive by dramatizing issues in the past which students continue to face today. For example, for our group presentations, we require students to do historical research on issues such as transportation and labor that involves contemporary comparisons, for which they investigate relevant web sites.

Time Frame

This unit typically takes three weeks. A breakdown of assignments is given in Handout 1, included in this lesson. Teachers who can devote only a few days to this unit can excerpt the chapters that concern Moll’s stay in the Virginia and Maryland colonies and use a modified version of the group presentation assignment. (See the timed writing assignments for the relevant pages in the novel.)

Objectives

Procedure

I begin by assigning group projects and explaining the importance of keeping up with the readings. I also discuss close reading skills and eighteenth-century printing conventions before students become seriously misled. Reading the first few pages aloud together in class is a must for helping students become comfortable with these conventions (2).

I. Journals
Students keep a journal in which they consider the larger historical issues introduced by the book.

1. In-Class Journal Prompts: These prompts may be used as warm up exercises or pre- or post-discussion assignments, but are planned for the classroom setting. Each response must be at least a full page.
   1. What appears to be the major topic of the novel: sex or money? (See pages 21-22.)
   2. What was America, the colonies, and the future United States like in Moll’s time? Defoe concludes the novel with “Written in the year 1683. Finis.” The novel was published in 1722. (See pages 67-83.)
   3. Have you ever visited a summer resort out of season? Moll returns to England and finds her way to the resort city of Bath. In what way is Bath like your favorite vacation spot? In what ways are her adventures there similar to modern “off season” adventures? (See pages 83-99.)
   4. For each illustration in the text, note similarities and differences between the figure and your mental image of Moll. (See pages 148-58.)
   5. Moll claims “vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.” Do you agree or disagree in her case? What about in life in general? (See pages 100-101.)
   6. Optional Prompt for Discussion of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Moll lives in fear of the “pox.” Identify the pox and relate it to the issue of AIDS. (See page 177.)
2. Out-of-class Journal Prompts: Responses to these prompts are planned as homework assignments based on individual reading and class contributions. Students must date each response and provide page numbers and direct quotations. Students may agree or disagree, but they should comment at length and support opinions with references to the text.
   1. Our social and economic position determines who and how we love. Define “social and economic position,” as well as “love.”
   2. Life in the American colonies changed the role of women. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
   3. Women have been and remain more at the mercy of social and economic forces than men. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

II. Group Presentations
I divide students into five groups and assign each group a topic through which to explore life in the seventeenth-century mid-Atlantic colonies where Moll lives. Quotations from the novel serve as springboards for each topic but are not the only passages relevant. Each group must provide fully documented evidence of research in at least five different sources, and must support its presentation with visual materials (such as maps, overhead projections, and/or computer generated programs) and with print materials (such as a source list or worksheet). Groups must present on their assigned day and stay within the fifteen-minute time limit.

• Group I—Transportation: across the Atlantic and within the colonies.
  
• Group II—Labor: slaves and indentured servants.
  
• Group III—Commerce: cash vs. barter economy.
  
• Group IV—Agriculture: clearing and “curing” the land.
  
• Group V—Interior: Native Americans and recreational opportunities.

III. Timed Writing
Students participate in a timed writing assignment by responding to the essay prompts included at the end of this lesson.

Assessment

Equal weight is given for each of the three types of assignments: individual work on Timed Writings #1 and #2, group work on the presentation, and class work as reflected in the journal.

Endnotes

1. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, An Authoritative Text: Background and Sources; Criticism, ed. Edward Kelly (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 7.

2. All page numbers in this lesson refer to the Norton edition of Moll Flanders (see note 1).

Bibliography

Print
Carr, Lois Green and Lorena S. Walsa. “The Planter’s Wife: The Experience of White Women in 17th Century Maryland.” William and Mary Quarterly 38 (1980): 625.

Gifford, George E. “Daniel Defoe and Maryland.” Maryland Historical Magazine 52 (1957): 307-15.

Kibbie, Ann Louise. “Monstrous Generation: The Birth of Capital in Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Roxana.” Publication of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA) 110 (October 1995): 1023-34.

Menard, Russell R. “Population, Economy and Society in 17th Century Maryland.” Maryland Historical Magazine 79 (Spring 1984): 71-92.

Spruill, Julia Cherry. Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies. 1938. Reprint, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1998.

Video
Atwood, David with Alex Kingston and Daniel Graig. Moll Flanders. Boston: WGBH Boston and Granada Television (UK), 1997. Video recording, 220 minutes. Adult content warning. WGBH Boston, (800) 255-9424; $29.95

Maps
The maps listed below are available from the Maryland State Archives/Huntingfield Collection: <http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us>. In my class, students describe each map and relate it to Moll’s adventures. They are especially fond of AAA road maps and satellite maps based on Landsat data (1987) that are distributed by the Earth Observation Satellite Company, Lanham, Maryland.

Lewis, Samuel. The State of Maryland from the best authorities. 1794 (MdHR G 1399-195).

Mason, Charles and Jeremiah Dixon. A map of that part of America where a degree of latitude was measured for the Royal Society. 1768 [1769] (MdHR G 1399-227).

Moll, Herman. A new map of Virginia and Maryland. 1741

[1708] (MdHR G 1399-516).

Smith, John. Ould Virginia, from Smith’s History of Virginia. 1612 [1627] (MdHR G 1399-268).

Thornton, John. A Large Mapp of Virginia, Pennsylvania, East and West New Jersey & New York. c. 1682 (MdHR G 1399-98).

Internet Resources
These sites are useful for contemporary information on group presentation topics. Several have links marked “Education” and “History.”

Handout 1
Assignment Calendar

Timed Writing #1

Different perceptions of the same situation often cause humor and lead to insight. The formal education of young Moll provides an opportunity to note such discrepancies. Read carefully the passage in Moll Flanders beginning about the middle of page 8 with “The first account that I can Recollect” and ending at the top of page 12 with “Great, Rich, and High and I know not what.”

In a well-organized essay, discuss the expectations Moll has for her own future. On what does she base her expectations? How do her expectations compare with those the nurse and the mayoress have for her? What techniques does Defoe use in this passage to establish the reader’s expectations for Moll at the beginning of the novel?

Timed Writing #2

Daniel Defoe uses specific historical information about the American colonies in his novel. Write a well-organized essay in which you closely analyze specific historical material. Focus your discussion on ONE of the passages below, or select a comparable passage of at least a page. Consider both the content and the style of the passage. Use any information you have from studies in other disciplines. Consider the passage within the context of the novel as a whole.

• Life in Virginia, the first time (pages 67-70).
• The first argument for going to the colonies (pages 123-24).
• The second argument for going to the colonies (pages 236-38).
• The actual journey to the colonies (pages 239-51).
• Life in Virginia, the second time (pages 251-58).
• Life in Maryland (pages 258-68).

Nancy Traubitz recently retired from her position as an English resource teacher at Springbrook High School, in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is now a consultant for the Montgomery County Public Schools. This unit began at Brown University in 1994 in a National Endowment for the Humanities project, “Texts and Teachers: Themes in Comparative Literature: Desire and the Marketplace.” A Maryland Council for the Humanities grant paid for textbooks and maps. However, the author’s deepest debt, for this project and many others, is to her colleagues, history teacher Maura Ryan and English teacher Joanne Langan.