Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Changeling, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Appearance vs. Reality
Passion, Sanity, and Identity
Transaction and Commodification
Destiny vs. Agency
Summary
Analysis
Alibius, the owner and manager of the local mad house, pulls his assistant Lollio aside. Alibius trusts Lollio, and he confesses that he has an important task for Lollio to manage. As Alibius tries to explain the task, however, Lollio continually cuts him off, leading to a series of humorous miscommunications. At last, Alibius reveals that he is nervous his wife Isabella—who is much younger—will have sex with someone else. Alibius therefore wants Lollio to keep an eye on his wife whenever Alibius goes out.
The subplot at Alibius’s madhouse immediately has a very different tone than the central story; whereas Beatrice and Alsemero speak in heightened verse (meaning metered poetry), Lollio traffics in prose (which lacks rhythm and line breaks). In addition to signaling the less-rarified class bracket that Lollio and Alibius belong to, prose also gives these scenes a funnier, more relaxed feeling.
Themes
Literary Devices
Lollio agrees, but he is confused about who Alibius sees as a threat. After all, the only people in this house are fools and madmen; as Lollio puts it, “the one has not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be fools.” Alibius explains that he is actually worried about the visitors who come to see the patients. Lollio promises Alibius that he will make sure none of these visitors ever lay eyes on Isabella.
Lollio’s wordplay makes his cleverness felt, but it also does a good deal to break down the divides of class and status: by twisting the language around fools and knaves, Lollio makes it clear that there is no absolute line between the madhouse’s patients and its employees. Alibius’s obsession with nobody seeing Isabella again equates appearance with reality: if someone can see Isabella, in Alibius’s mind, that in and of itself is a carnal act.
Themes
Literary Devices
Alibius reiterates just how much he trusts Lollio, and then he asks what time it is. Lollio replies that it is “belly hour,” meaning that it is time for dinner. When Alibius is baffled by this turn of phrase, Lollio explains that every part of the day is affiliated with a body part—“we wake at six and look about us, that’s eye hour […] at nine gather flowers, and pluck a rose, that’s nose hour.” Alibius finds this to be very profound.
A man named Pedro arrives, with an “idiot” in tow. Pedro gives Alibius money to care for his friend; after Lollio asks, Pedro also gives Lollio some gold coins. Pedro explains that though the patient is named Antonio, he goes by Tony. While Antonio giggles and calls everyone “cousin,” Pedro explains that Antonio is actually from a very prominent family; if Alibius and Lollio can cure him, they stand to profit greatly.
Even for the 1600s, the medical standards of Alibius’s practice seem low: rather than asking any questions about Antonio’s condition, Alibius accepts him as a “fool” merely because he giggles and repeats himself. Pedro’s promise of money acknowledges that this madhouse is less centered on healing and more centered on profit; Alibius wants to cure his patients, but his first priority is to commodify them.
Themes
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Lollio wittily jokes that he will make Antonio just like him, whether that means improving Antonio’s skills or decreasing his own mental capacity. Pedro admires Lollio’s quick sense of humor. Then Pedro leaves, and Antonio begins to cry for his cousin. To calm Antonio—and to assess what Antonio can and cannot do— Lollio begins to ask him a series of questions.
Again, Lollio uses well-crafted language and quick humor to muddy the divide between patient and caretaker. In addition to mocking the hierarchies that the rest of the characters hold so dear, Lollio’s goofy behavior hints at his lack of respect for Alibius’s authority.
Themes
For almost every question Lollio asks, Antonio has a clever answer, leading Lollio to remark that Antonio will be one of the more advanced patients in Alibius’s home. The one question that stumps Tony is about how many knaves it takes to make an honest man. Lollio explains that it takes three: “a sergeant, a jailer, and a beadle: the sergeant catches him, the jailer holds him, and the beadles lashes him.” Antonio laughs at this.
Lollio’s focus on ameliorating the gap between patient and doctor now makes more sense, as Antonio seems to embody the archetype of the wise fool. Lollio’s joke here suggests that the sergeants, jailers and beadles (court officers) who deal with criminals are just as “knavish” as the criminals themselves—further suggesting that one’s place in society is a question of luck and circumstance rather than personality.
Themes
When Lollio asks Antonio how many fools there are in this madhouse, Antonio replies that there are two: “thou and I.” This annoys Lollio, who immediately launches into some elaborate wordplay about fools and knaves; he suggests he, Alibius and Antonio could all be fools or knaves, depending on where they are standing and how they are perceived.
Antonio has now caught on to Lollio’s drift, and he similarly has fun poking holes in Alicante’s rigid societal structures. But rather than embracing this new comedic partner, Lollio is frustrated that he is losing control over the room. Even as Lollio mocks hierarchies, then, he also wants to benefit from them, seizing his (admittedly arbitrary) power as a source of profit and personal gain.
Themes
Just then, several of the madmen in the house begin shouting nonsense at one another, signaling to Lollio that they are hungry. Alibius heads off to deal with the madmen, leaving Lollio to handle the fools; before he goes, Alibius reminds Lollio to watch Isabella. Antonio wants to see the madmen, jokingly wondering if they will bite him. Lollio announces that Antonio is his favorite fool he has ever worked with.
Frequently, the play’s offstage madmen act as exaggerated versions of the central characters—just as the madmen howl and shout when they desire food, Beatrice, DeFlores and the rest lose control whenever they desire sex. This exchange also cements Alibius’s almost obsessive need to establish sole possession over Isabella. While that need is played for comic effect here, it has darker undertones in the Alsemero-Beatrice-DeFlores love triangle.
Themes
