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
Lucy Lockit calls Macheath a “perfidious Wretch.” She is pregnant with his child—he has ruined her life, and she hopes he gets tortured. She sings that, when a “good Huswife” traps a rat, she takes pleasure in watching the dog or cat tear it to pieces (Air 27). Macheath asks why Lucy doesn’t pity or respect her husband—they never formally married, but they don’t need to, because “a Man of Honour[’s] Word is as good as his Bond.” Lucy sings about how men can get away with stealing, cheating, and lying until their love lives reveal their true colors (Air 28).
Lucy’s arrival shows that Macheath’s love life clearly follows a pattern: he charms women into sleeping with him, and then disappears as soon as he has to take some responsibility for his actions. Unlike Polly, Lucy clearly understands what he is doing. Needless to say, he is no true “Man of Honour”—he is just using empty sweet-talk to try and manipulate her once again. Clearly, Polly is lucky that her father turned in Macheath before she ended up getting pregnant, too.
Themes
Literary Devices
Macheath proposes that he and Lucy marry as soon as possible, but Lucy calls him an “Insinuating Monster!” because she knows about his marriage to Polly. Macheath says that he and Polly aren’t really married—Polly is just spreading rumors to ruin his reputation and make Lucy jealous. He promises to prove his honor by marrying Lucy. Lucy accepts that Macheath didn’t actually marry Polly—whom he calls vain and conceited. He sings about how women convince themselves that they’re beautiful even when everyone else can see that they’re not (Air 29). Lucy decides that her father (Lockit) will help her decide whether to trust Macheath. She admits that she “long[s] to be made an honest Woman.”
Macheath manipulates his way out of Lucy’s accusations by telling lies so egregious that it seems like they have to be true. In particular, he tailors his lies to appeal for her burning desire for romance—or, as she puts it, her need “to be made an honest Woman.” She feels this way because she sees love as the only thing that could save her from an otherwise dreadful life as a corrupt jailor’s daughter. Of course, this scene’s suspense and comic effect depend on dramatic irony: the audience already knows that Macheath has promised Polly exactly the same things as he is promising Lucy here.
Themes
Literary Devices
