Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Beggar’s Opera, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Moral Corruption and Hypocrisy
Gender, Love, and Marriage
Class, Capitalism, and Inequality
Opera, High Art, and Performance
Summary
Analysis
In private, Mrs. Peachum tells Peachum that they have to turn Macheath in, even if Polly doesn’t agree. Peachum complains that he doesn’t want to kill such “a great Man”—a skillful, profitable thief—but agrees that they have no choice. Mrs. Peachum will deal with Polly and Peachum with the courts.
Peachum and Mrs. Peachum agree that their bottom line matters more than Polly’s love, and they make a plan to manipulate Polly and the legal system alike to achieve their aims. In fact, Peachum takes this to an absurd extreme by complaining that turning in Macheath will eat into his profits. Once again, John Gay satirically exaggerates his protagonists’ brutality both for comic effect and to criticize his contemporary English society’s immorality and corruption.
Themes
