Defoe’s criminal minds : a study of female cognitive processing in 18th century criminal fiction
In the opening passage to An Appeal to Honour and Justice, Though It Be of His Worst Enemies (1715), Daniel Defoe says, “I hear much of people’s calling out to punish the guilty, but few are c...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Final Year Project |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52191 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | In
the
opening
passage
to
An
Appeal
to
Honour
and
Justice,
Though
It
Be
of
His
Worst
Enemies
(1715),
Daniel
Defoe
says,
“I
hear
much
of
people’s
calling
out
to
punish
the
guilty,
but
few
are
concerned
to
clear
the
innocent”
(Location
12).
Acquainted
with
the
walls
of
Newgate
prison,
Defoe
was
no
stranger
to
the
House
of
Commons
and
the
working
system
of
the
Old
Bailey,
London’s
infamous
central
criminal
court.
Having
written
An
Appeal
to
Honour
and
Justice,
it
is
no
surprise,
then,
that
Defoe
began
writing
criminal
autobiographies
and,
ultimately,
popular
realist
novels
like
Robinson
Crusoe
(1719).
In
the
midst
of
the
crime
wave
that
plagued
the
streets
of
London
in
the
18th
century,
Defoe,
who
has
been
labeled
“the
first
key
figure
in
the
rise
of
the
novel”
(Watt
80),
wrote
a
seemingly
authentic
report
of
the
human
experience,
employing
the
same
techniques
he
uses
in
his
realist
novels
to
construct
his
criminal
autobiographies.
As
Maximillian
E.
Novak
observes,
“his
fictions
appeared
concurrently
with
the
sudden
surge
in
crimes
of
all
sorts
during
the
period
spanning
1715-‐1725”
(“Appearances
of
Truth”
31).
This
essay
examines
Defoe’s
struggle
to
best
represent
a
“realistic”
female
experience
in
his
crime
novels
Moll
Flanders
and
Roxana
in,
I
suggest,
an
attempt
to
clear
the
misconceptions
held
by
society
about
criminality,
especially
female
criminals.
This
is
despite
the
fact
that
his
gendered
representations
of
criminal
activity
are
complicated
by
the
unconventional
characterization
of
his
female
protagonists,
as
well
as
the
contrast
between
his
female
criminals
and
their
male
counterparts.
Through
the
use
of
realism
in
his
writing
of
criminal
autobiographies,
Defoe
depicts
a
different
conception
of
crime
and
female
criminality,
setting
him
apart
from
his
contemporaries. |
|---|