The main plot and the subplot of The Changeling each feature a primary female character, who stand in stark contrast to one another. While the main plot focuses on Beatrice, who represents female vice and weakness, the subplot is centered upon Isabella, who represents female virtue and honesty. These two female characters serve as foils for each other.
At the play’s conclusion, Beatrice has finally been brought to justice for the various crimes she has committed throughout the narrative. So capriciously decadent that she does not want to marry the man to whom she was betrothed, she orders her servant, De Flores, to kill her. In order to prevent De Flores from confessing to his involvement in the murder, she agrees to sleep with him, and then devises a trick to conceal the loss of her virginity from her husband. She then orders the murder of Diaphanta, her waiting-woman, in order to silence her. Throughout the play, Beatrice shows little loyalty to anyone around her, instead sacrificing others in the pursuit of her own desires.
Conversely, Isabella has good reason to resent her husband, and yet she still turns down multiple opportunities to conduct an affair. At the end of the play, she criticizes his jealous and possessive behavior while nevertheless affirming her faithfulness to him:
ISABELLA [ to ALIBIUS ] : Your change is still behind,
But deserve best your transformation:
You are a jealous coxcomb, keep schools of folly,
And teach your scholars how to break your own head.
ALIBIUS : I see all apparent, wife, and will change now
Into a better husband, and never keep
Scholars that shall be wiser than myself.
Rather than leaving her flawed husband, Isabella decides to work on their marriage, pulling a trick of her own in order to demonstrate to Alibius the error of his ways. His response suggests that he has been persuaded by her argument, and will allow her greater freedom in the future. These two primary female characters serve, for Middleton and Rowley, as a negative and positive model of female conduct.
