Monday, June 12, 2006
Defoe and the Patricians and the Plebeians
[assignment week 2. due Wednesday.] How does E.P. Thompson's article "Patricians and Plebs" (versions of which pub. 1974, 1978, combined 1978, penguin ed., pp. 16-49) help us to understand Defoe's Moll Flanders? How does Moll not fit Thompson's model? (Indeed, what is his model?; why does he use it--the latter question we can discuss in class.)
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For me, this article helped explain what Moll Flanders really isn't. There isn't a lot of discussion about the whole "us verses them" problem like there is in the Patricians and the Plebs article.
In Moll Flanders, she lives her life bouncing between the lowest of the low and a middle-class existance. She never really encounters anyone of the landed elite, and there is no patriartical figure that watches out for her. It's more of a three tier system in Defoe's book. He leaves the upper class out of the story and focuses much more on the middle and lower classes and how they interacted.
At one point Moll is married to a draper, and other various husbands are not members of the landed elite, they get by with what they have, but work for it. Even Moll works for her living, even if it is stealing...there isn't anything handed out to her, like the gentry recieves.
This article helped explain what Moll wanted to be in some senses. While she did not really believe that she would become one of the haves, she wanted to rise above the have-nots. Thompson's two class system model isn't really evident in Moll Flanders. The book does not explain anything about the upper classes, only the bottom of Thompson's two class model. In that sense, I don't believe that Thompson's article helped me in understanding Moll Flanders, it just gave more insight into what the other side of the story would have been had the book talked more about the upper classes.
Thompson's article of the Patricians and the Plebs I think was first off very difficult to comprehend. But, if I were to use class discussion today, I would say it focussed on the idea of 2-tiered system. You have Thompson focusing mainly on the people that were with and without that make up the economic diversity of the society.
I don't think that the article necessarily helped to explain Moll rather than to maybe go beyond Moll. In Defoe's book, the focus is on Moll's survival and strife through trying to survive self sufficiently. She happens to stumble into certain situations that are better or worse depending, but she never finds a concrete place in society. However, there was few mentions of any landed elite. Thompson's article goes further and gives us insight to the gentry, which we were not given insight to in Defoe's.
Thompson's article was a very confusing article...his style of writing was quite hard to get used to. However, the use of it in clarifying Moll Flanders wasn't readily apparrent if at all. Thompson describes the whole class system in as a two-tiered-plebs v. patricians model. In Moll you really never see much of the uppser classes, just the people on the lower end of the spectrum. Moll didn't seek to be a patrician--she just didn't want to be a pleb. Thompson isn't really applicable to Moll Flanders because it lacks the ability to explain Moll herself. The only way that Thompson helps in understanding Moll Flanders is to tell us what Moll wasn't.
Thompson's article was a very confusing article...his style of writing was quite hard to get used to. However, the use of it in clarifying Moll Flanders wasn't readily apparrent if at all. Thompson describes the whole class system in as a two-tiered-plebs v. patricians model. In Moll you really never see much of the uppser classes, just the people on the lower end of the spectrum. Moll didn't seek to be a patrician--she just didn't want to be a pleb. Thompson isn't really applicable to Moll Flanders because it lacks the ability to explain Moll herself. The only way that Thompson helps in understanding Moll Flanders is to tell us what Moll wasn't.
EP Thompson's article on Pats and Plebs parallels Moll Flanders. In other words, Defoe gives his readers a vivid picture of the plight of the poor; while, Thompson chronicles the situation in which the landed elite find themselves. Clearly Moll does not fit in with EP's article because she is not part of the landed elite, neither is she even the working poor. She is a criminal. Only for breif periods in her life does she work for an "honest living."
Where Moll does fit into to Thompson's mold is in the area of deference. Moll knows her place. That is why she is so desparate to get out of it. She respects those above her even if it is just Mother Midnight or her Landlords or a JP. In other words, Moll accepts the hierarchical structure of society that demands deference.
E.P. Thomspon described a two-tiered system of class in his article: the haves and have nots, the plebs v. patricians. It somewhat helped understand Moll Flanders with the "have not" group, where Moll struggled throughout the book to not be. Also, the book seems to touch on the "have" class as well with the family with the two brothers. She got a taste of that class (although she wasn't a member of it) when she worked for them and then also a little bit after she married the younger brother. However, in the book, there is also a middle class that Thompson doesn't touch on. It is between this class and the lower class that Moll bounces back and forth between.
Oh, I just posted the last comment. I thought I put my name, but I guess not. Sorry about that.
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