I have been rich and poor. Dies in hiding from creditors, 1731. Business mentality 3. Egotism, secrecy, unstable identity. Problem in reading Defoe is not in recognizing these features, but in deciding the interplay between them.
Plot consists of bringing blood and external circumstances into alignment.
Locke's doctrine of the tabula rasa - no innate ideas, we build up a sense of the world, and of ourselves, by using our senses. Moll is set to work on ladies' clothes, is given such clothes, and passes for a lady eventually. From the beginning of Moll's erotic experience, we are left wondering whether love is natural and spontaneous, or whether it is a response to external stimuli - above all, economic ones. What is certain is that he woos her on two levels simultaneously, the sexual and the financial. Sex is therefore a transaction, or rather an investment - after each relationship she adds up whether she has more money or less.