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
As they arrive home, Polly tells Peachum that she will be a good wife to Macheath: she will give him “some trifling Liberties” in exchange for gifts. She sings that a virgin is like a beautiful, blooming flower—which “rots, stinks, and dies” after getting picked (Air 6). Peachum responds that he doesn’t mind Polly sleeping with different men for money or information—but he will kill her if she gets married.
Audiences will immediately notice that Polly is not at all like the other characters in the play—she is motivated by idealistic love, not greed and self-interest. Of course, she’s still familiar with the transactional side of relationships, just like her parents: her comment about “trifling Liberties” shows as much. It also suggests that she doesn’t have any illusions about Macheath’s honor or loyalty. Still, the audience must wait and see whether she is still being too naïve for her fabled highwayman husband. Lastly, her song about virgins and rotting flowers is deeply ironic: in it, she seems to be pointing out how men mistreat women and foreshadowing her own demise.
Themes
