In The Beggar’s Opera, John Gay satirizes a depraved criminal underworld where everything has a price, from stolen goods to human life. Guided by account books rather than conscience, this underworld’s power players—like Peachum and the madam Mrs. Diana Trapes—have learned how to turn theft, exploitation, and violence into profit. Gay depicts these criminal entrepreneurs as little different from ordinary businesspeople: they spend their days calculating costs and prices, hiring and firing employees, trying to expand into new markets, and so on. In fact, Peachum takes capitalist best practices to an extreme: all he thinks about is business, and he constantly points out that he has to be as ruthless as possible to make a profit and outcompete his rivals. This is why he turns his thieves in for the £40 reward as soon as they stop bringing in enough loot, and why he uses as much violence as necessary to stay in power. As he puts it, “if Business cannot be carried on without [murder], what would you have a Gentleman do?”
While set in a poor district of London, The Beggar’s Opera is really a commentary on English society as a whole. In the 1720s, a few decades before the Industrial Revolution, politicians, nobility, and businessmen were reorganizing the economy and building a vast colonial empire primarily to serve their commercial interests. John Gay was not fond of this new system: it bankrupted his family, it created a profoundly unequal class system, it made relationships increasingly transactional, and most of all, he hated having to flatter wealthy barons in order to win financial support for his art. So he mocks and criticizes this system throughout The Beggar’s Opera. For instance, one of Macheath’s associates is nicknamed “Bob Booty”—which was also a common nickname for Robert Walpole, England’s notoriously corrupt prime minister. Similarly, a character named the Beggar—who is supposed to represent the playwright—directly tells the audience that the opera is about how the rich and the poor both make their money through crime, but only the poor go to jail for it.
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Class, Capitalism, and Inequality ThemeTracker
Class, Capitalism, and Inequality Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
Robin of Bagshot, alias Gorgon, alias Bluff Bob, alias Carbuncle, alias Bob Booty.
I would indulge the Girl as far as prudently we can. In any thing, but Marriage! After that, my Dear, how shall we be safe? Are we not then in her Husband’s Power? For a Husband hath the absolute Power over all a Wife’s Secrets but her own. If the Girl had the Discretion of a Court Lady, who can have a dozen young Fellows at her Ear without complying with one, I should not matter it; but Polly is Tinder, and a Spark will at once set her on a Flame. Married! If the Wench does not know her own Profit, sure she knows her own Pleasure better than to make herself a Property! My Daughter to me should be, like a Court Lady to a Minister of State, a Key to the whole Gang. Married! If the Affair is not already done, I’ll terrify her from it.
POLLY. I did not marry him (as ’tis the Fashion) cooly and deliberately for Honour or Money. But, I love him.
MRS PEACHUM. Love him! worse and worse! I thought the Girl had been better bred. Oh Husband, Husband! her Folly makes me mad! my Head swims! I’m distracted! I can’t support myself—Oh!
[Faints.]
Money, Wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a Contempt for Roguery as you imagine.
POLLY. What, murder the Man I love! The Blood runs cold at my Heart with the very Thought of it.
PEACHUM. Fye, Polly! What hath Murder to do in the Affair? Since the thing sooner or later must happen, I dare say, the Captain himself would like that we should get the Reward for his Death sooner than a Stranger. Why, Polly, the Captain knows, that as ’tis his Employment to rob, so ’tis ours to take Robbers; every Man in his Business. So that there is no Malice in the Case.
We retrench the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jack-daw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, for Money was made for the Free-hearted and Generous, and where is the Injury of taking from another, what he hath not the Heart to make use of?
The Fees here are so many, and so exorbitant, that few Fortunes can bear the Expence of getting off handsomly, or of dying like a Gentleman.
LOCKIT. We are treated too by them with Contempt, as if our Profession were not reputable.
PEACHUM. In one respect indeed, our Employment may be reckon’d dishonest, because, like Great Statesmen, we encourage those who betray their Friends.
LOCKIT. Such Language, Brother, any where else, might turn to your prejudice. Learn to be more guarded, I beg you.
Be pacified, my dear Lucy—This is all a Fetch of Polly’s, to make me desperate with you in case I get off. If I am hang’d, she would fain have the Credit of being thought my Widow—Really, Polly, this is no time for a Dispute of this sort; for whenever you are talking of Marriage, I am thinking of Hanging.
Love, Sir, is a Misfortune that may happen to the most discreet Woman, and in Love we are all Fools alike.—Notwithstanding all he swore, I am now fully convinc’d that Polly Peachum is actually his Wife.—Did I let him escape, (Fool that I was!) to go to her?—Polly will wheedle herself into his Money, and then Peachum will hang him, and cheat us both.
LOCKIT. Macheath’s time is come, Lucy.—We know our own Affairs, therefore let us have no more Whimpering or Whining.
[…]
PEACHUM. Set your Heart at rest, Polly.—Your Husband is to dye to-day.—Therefore, if you are not already provided, ’tis high time to look about for another.
