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
In Alsemero’s chambers, Jasperino now continues to assert that Beatrice has some inappropriate connection with DeFlores. Though Alsemero is still confused by Beatrice’s seeming hatred of DeFlores, he nevertheless agrees that he needs to further investigate his new wife. Seeing that Beatrice is approaching, Jasperino exits, leaving the newlyweds alone together.
Jasperino stands to lose both friendship and employment by continuing to distrust Beatrice—but his willingness to risk these things is a testament to his more honest, less transactional approach.
Themes
Right away, Beatrice notes that Alsemero looks ill; when Beatrice asks if she can “cure” him, Alsemero inquires whether or not his wife is “honest.” Beatrice laughs nervously, which angers Alsemero, even when Beatrice tries to play it off as a sign of her innocence. Enraged, Alsemero declares his new wife a “whore.” Beatrice, horrified, tells Alsemero he has broken something forever in their marriage. But Alsemero stands firm, promising only that he will “ransack” Beatrice’s heart and “tear out [his] suspicion.”
Now, the play explicitly articulates its juxtaposition of external looks and internal realities. Whereas Beatrice tries to use mannerisms and physical features as proof of her innocence, Alsemero is determined to “ransack”—meaning literally dig through—what is inside her heart, “tear[ing] out” what she has kept hidden.
Themes
Literary Devices
Beatrice wants to know what evidence has made Alsemero accuse her of dishonesty. Alsemero is sure that Beatrice is committing adultery with DeFlores; why else would she change her behavior toward him so suddenly? Alsemero tells Beatrice that Diaphanta could have confirmed his accusations if she were still alive.
Passion has transformed so many of the play’s characters, from Antonio to Alonzo to Alsemero himself. It follows, then, that Alsemero uses Beatrice’s transformation—her change in behavior—as proof of desire, as the two are so often linked.
Themes
Backed into a corner, Beatrice finally confesses: she asked DeFlores to murder Alonzo de Piracquo, hoping that that would clear the way for her marriage to Alsemero. Beatrice thinks that this will make Alsemero forgive her—“remember,” she says, “I am true unto your bed”—but in fact, this only makes Alsemero feel more hopeless.
Alsemero’s refusal to empathize at all with Beatrice's logic reflects his narrow understanding of virginity as a commodity: though Beatrice only had sex with DeFlores out of necessity, Alsemero still cannot forgive what he sees as the ultimate violation.
Themes
Literary Devices
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While Alsemero ponders what to do, he instructs Beatrice to get into his cupboard; he quickly locks the doors, vowing to be her “keeper.” Just then, DeFlores walks by. Pretending to be cheerful, Alsemero asks DeFlores about a spot of blood on his clothes. DeFlores is shocked, asking “blood? No, sure t’was washed since.” These words confirm to Alsemero that DeFlores is guilty, and he pushes DeFlores to explain why his clothes would be bloodstained.
In a moment that calls back to Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and her famous hallucination of blood, DeFlores cannot erase the emotional proof of his crime even as he washes out the physical traces of “blood.” Once again, then, external markers—from a beautiful forehead to an ugly blood stain—are changeable and easy to hide. But internal feelings seem destined to come out, as DeFlores’s guilt causes him to inadvertently reveal his bloody deeds (“sure t’was washed since”).
Themes
DeFlores tries to make up an excuse, but it is no use—Alsemero reveals that Beatrice has confessed to her crimes and implicated DeFlores as the actual murderer. Beatrice cries out from within Alsemero’s cupboard, and DeFlores asks to join her. Alsemero locks DeFlores in, lamenting the “cunning devils” around him: “how should blind men know you from fair faced saints?” Alsemero angrily taunts that DeFlores and Beatrice can practice their adultery in the cupboard, as they will have to reveal it to the world soon enough.
In Alsemero’s formulation, he—and everyone around him—is a “blind man”: if what really matters is hidden motivation and internal feeling, then human eyesight is superficial and ineffective. By the end of the play, Alsemero has thus concluded what Beatrice articulated in the very first scene: that eyes, that most important symbol, are “rash” and untrustworthy.
Themes
Vermandero rushes in with Alibius, Isabella, Tomazo, Franciscus and Antonio. But before Vermandero can explain his theory of Franciscus and Antonio’s guilt, Alsemero reveals that he has definitive proof as to who murdered Alonzo. Tomazo is impatient to learn the truth, and Alsemero warns Vermandero that the murderers are “close” to his heart; their disguises are far more subtle and more ingenious than even those of Franciscus and Antonio.
The thematic relationship between the core plot and the subplot now comes into better focus. In the subplot, the disguises are literal and mostly inconsequential; people dress up and betray one another, but this doesn’t ruin any relationships or create any lasting harm. By contrast, the disguises here are not so easily recognized (or shed), and the betrayers are much “closer” to one another emotionally.
Themes
From inside the cupboard, Beatrice cries out in pain as DeFlores shouts at her. When Vermandero wonders about the sounds, Alsemero unlocks the cupboard, revealing DeFlores and a now-wounded Beatrice. Vermandero is heartbroken to realize that his daughter is behind the murder: “a host of enemies entered my citadel could not amaze like this,” he marvels. Beatrice warns her father away, not wanting to “defile” him. She reflects that she was doomed to this destiny: “beneath the stars, upon yon meteor ever hung my fate, ‘mongst things corruptible; I ne’er could pluck it from him.”
Vermandero spoke at the beginning of the play about not wanting any foreigners to see his castle—but now he must realize that the true enemy has been inside his walls all along. There is therefore a political undertone to The Changeling’s assertion that “a host of enemies” could not afflict Vermandero as his own daughter could: the playwrights seem to be cautioning against easy alliances (like the one England was hoping to make with Spain), as such alliances could prove dangerous. It is also important to note the way Beatrice blames “fate,” instead of her own choices, for her crimes. She asserts that she was born into this cruel path (dictated by “the stars”), and she insists on her own helplessness (saying she “ne’er could pluck” her agency back from destiny).
Themes
Beatrice now confesses to Alsemero that she never actually had sex with him; the woman he had sex with last night was Diaphanta in disguise. DeFlores also reveals that he and Beatrice did, indeed, have sex. “I loved this woman in spite of her heart,” DeFlores explains, noting that Beatrice began to love him out of gratitude for his murder of Alonzo. Still, DeFlores has no regrets—all he ever wanted was to have sex with Beatrice, and now he has “drunk up all” of it.
Even as the play has proven that external appearances are often deceptive and meaningless, DeFlores’s love for Beatrice exists only because of her looks—he is attracted to her, he admits, “in spite of her heart.” Perhaps this is why, as the play argues, sexual passion is so destabilizing: if desire is based primarily on appearances and appearances are unreliable, then desire itself is unreliable.
Themes
Vermandero wants to keep DeFlores alive to torture him, believing torture to be the most fitting punishment for his servant’s unspeakable crimes. But DeFlores refuses, instead bringing out his pen knife and quickly killing himself. As he dies, he calls out to “Joanna” to join him soon. Beatrice then also dies, apologizing to Alsemero with her last breath.
DeFlores finally gets to call Beatrice by her middle name “Joanna.” Previously, Vermandero and Alsemero used “Joanna” as a pet name to signal their deep knowledge and care for Beatrice—but now, it is her co-conspirator DeFlores who knows and loves her best.
Themes
Vermandero feels ashamed to be associated with such sinful behavior, but Alsemero assures him that he has acted honorably through all of it. Tomazo, too, is now calm, as he is confident that Beatrice and DeFlores will find sufficient punishment for their sins in the afterlife. Amazedly, Alsemero thinks about how much change has happened so quickly: “here’s beauty changed to ugly whoredom, here servant obedience to a master sin, imperious murder.” However, Alsemero also embraces the happier changes, like his newfound alliance with Tomazo.
Alsemero’s monologue gives the play its title, but it also knits The Changeling’s two core themes together. Is Beatrice’s adultery and murder a shift, or a revelation of her true identity? Was DeFlores’s “sin” a destiny he hid with a mask of “servant obedience,” or did his desire really “change” him? By posing these questions, Middleton and Rowley leave room for some ambiguity in their show’s moral code, a rarity for theater of this era.
Themes
Antonio and Franciscus chime in, noting that they, too, have been changed to fools and madmen and then back again. And Isabella adds that she hopes Alibius will also undergo a major change, loosening his control on her and firing Lollio in favor of someone less intelligent but more obedient. Alibius vows to do these things and thus “change into a better husband.” Alsemero turns to Vermandero, promising that he still wants to act as a son to him. He then encourages Vermandero to be strong, letting his tears fall and his sorrow dissipate with them (“as it go from your eye, go from your heart”).
Throughout the show, characters’ passionate feelings have transformed or confused them. But now, as desperate desire and instinctive hate subside, characters are able to change into more rational, generous versions of themselves. Alibius vows to be more patient, while Franciscus and Antonio promise to exit the madhouse and leave their madness behind. The final mention of eyes is also interesting, as Alsemero uses the metaphor of tears to help Vermandero let go of his shame. If eyes can be misleading, Alsemero suggests, they can also be healing, allowing people to shake off their bad feelings with tears.
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Literary Devices
