Truth, Fiction, and the Problem of Realism in Moll Flanders

When we read Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, we are immediately struck by its persistent emphasis on truth. The narrative claims to be a genuine history of a woman’s life, written from her own memorandums. It does not present itself as a romance, a myth, or a purely fictional construct, but as a record grounded in lived experience.

However, this claim to truth becomes deeply complicated the moment we turn to the Preface.

The Preface, written by a fictional editor, assures us that the narrative is based on true facts, and that Moll herself has written the story of her life. At the same time, it also informs us that the original narrative has been “reconstructed.” The language has been refined, certain parts have been omitted, and the emphasis has been placed more on Moll’s repentance than on her criminal life. The editor openly admits to having “shortened” and reshaped the narrative to suit moral and religious purposes.

This creates an immediate tension between fact and fiction. On the one hand, the narrative insists on its truth-value. On the other hand, it acknowledges that this “truth” has been mediated, edited, and adapted. What we are reading, therefore, is not a simple autobiography, but a layered text in which an original story coexists with its reconstruction.

This tension is not incidental. It is central to what we understand as realism.

Realism, in literary and philosophical terms, is often associated with the representation of reality as it is experienced by the individual. In modern philosophy, particularly in the works of René Descartes and John Locke, truth is linked to individual perception, consciousness, and experience. The emphasis shifts from universal or metaphysical truths to the immediate facts of lived reality.

The novel, as an emerging literary form, becomes the primary site for this new understanding of truth. It focuses on the experiences of particular individuals situated in specific times and places. It privileges memory, perception, and personal identity. In this sense, Moll Flanders participates in the development of what we may call modern realism.

Yet, as the Preface makes clear, this realism is not straightforward.

The idea of vraisemblance, or the “semblance of truth,” becomes crucial here. Truth in the novel does not exist as direct, unmediated fact. It exists in the form of narrative, and therefore always carries an element of construction. The novel claims to represent reality, but it does so through storytelling. As a result, truth is always shaped, arranged, and sometimes even concealed within the narrative structure.

This is precisely what we encounter in Moll Flanders. The narrative repeatedly foregrounds its own truth-claim, while simultaneously revealing the processes through which that truth has been altered. The editor’s intervention, the omission of “immodest” details, and the moralizing framework all point to a form of representation that is as much about shaping reality as it is about recording it.

At the same time, the novel grounds its realism in the figure of Moll herself. The narrative is centred on a single individual whose life unfolds through a series of experiences—marriages, crimes, imprisonments, and eventual repentance. It is through Moll’s perspective that the world is presented, and it is her consciousness that provides unity to the narrative.

One of the most striking aspects of this representation is the way in which economic considerations shape human relationships. The world of Moll Flanders is one in which money becomes the central motivating force. Love, marriage, and even morality are closely tied to financial security. Moll’s repeated marriages, her involvement in criminal activities, and her decisions at crucial moments are all influenced by her desire to survive in a society defined by economic determinism.

In this sense, the novel reflects the rise of what may be called economic individualism. The individual seeks to maximise material and social rewards, often by whatever means are available. Poverty is not merely a condition but a form of pressure that shapes behaviour and compels action. Moll herself explicitly connects moments of distress with the temptation to commit crime, suggesting that economic necessity plays a decisive role in moral transgression.

And yet, the narrative resists being reduced to a purely economic reading. Alongside the emphasis on money and survival, it also presents moments of emotional intensity—love, regret, fear, and reflection. Moll is not simply a calculating individual; she is also a subject capable of genuine feeling. The coexistence of these dimensions adds complexity to her character and prevents the narrative from collapsing into a single explanatory framework.

What emerges from all this is a form of realism that is fundamentally unstable. The novel seeks to represent reality, but it does so through a structure that constantly negotiates between truth and fiction, experience and reconstruction, individual perception and moral interpretation.

To read Moll Flanders is therefore to engage with a text that not only represents reality but also questions the very possibility of representing it truthfully. The novel does not resolve the tension between fact and fiction; instead, it sustains it. In doing so, it reveals that realism is not simply about telling the truth, but about exploring the conditions under which truth can be narrated at all.

In this sense, Moll Flanders stands at a crucial moment in the history of the novel. It demonstrates that the representation of reality is always mediated, always constructed, and always open to interpretation. The truth it offers is not absolute, but provisional—emerging from the complex interplay between life, narrative, and the act of storytelling itself.

Further Reading

Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel 

John Richetti, The Life of Daniel Defoe 

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding