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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What spared Moll's mother's life when she was condemned to die?

2. What happens to her draper husband?

3. What does Moll want to become?

4. What does Moll suspect about her landlady and the gentleman?

5. Who presses Betty to marry the younger brother?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Moll marry for the third time?

2. What is Defoe's stated purpose in presenting this book?

3. After some repentance for their sleeping together, what do Moll and the gentleman do?

4. What does Moll learn about the Men who visit Bath during the summer season?

5. What is the complication that arises in the new family where Moll lives?

6. How does Moll protest the older brother's suggestion?

7. What is the purpose of the preface to Moll Flanders?

8. How does the novel begin?

9. What solution do Moll and her husband-brother come up with to resolve the situation?

10. To Moll's chagrin, what does the older brother insist that she do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on the use of irony in MOLL FLANDERS. Use the example of Moll and James each thinking the other was rich before they married and finding out that Moll really was a woman of fortune years later when they came to America. Express your opinion about how such ironic twists in a plot tend to make a story more interesting. Comment on whether you think irony happens in real life and give at least one example.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages on literary language of the 18th century. Use examples in the novel to demonstrate the formality of written language and vocabulary that is not used in the same way today. State you opinion about the degree of difficulty in understanding the story that language presents in MOLL FLANDERS.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay of at least two typewritten, double spaced pages expressing your opinion about the importance of MOLL FLANDERS as an example of 18th century fiction and whether it had an effect on later writers. Is there a departure from the norm with this novel that led eventually to books by writers such as Henry James? Discuss whether earlier works of fiction have an influence over works that follow in later years.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 774 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample