Despite some comedic moments, Middleton and Rowley’s play The Changeling is regarded as a tragedy due to its exploration of dark and disturbing themes, the downfall of its central characters, and the pervasive sense of moral and emotional turmoil that permeates the play. The story unfolds as Beatrice, a wealthy young woman living in the Spanish city of Alicante, becomes entangled in a web of deceit and murder. Her impulsive decision to hire De Flores, a servant, to kill her betrothed, Alonzo, sets off a chain of tragic events that forces Beatrice to make increasingly depraved decisions in order to conceal her involvement in the murder. By the end of the play, many principal characters, including Beatrice, her waiting-woman Diaphanta, De Flores, and Alsemero, all die violently. Those characters who survive are left to ruminate on the consequences of unbridled passion and the random nature of fate.
The subplot of the play is primarily comedic, featuring a series of absurd characters, including Franciscus and Antonio, who employ impractical and absurd schemes in order to woo the young wife of an asylum-keeper. However, this comic subplot is secondary to the narrative of Beatrice. In fact, the more light-hearted characters of the subplot get pulled into the main plot. As Alonzo’s brother Tomazo attempts to solve the mystery of his brother’s death, Franciscus and Antonio are falsely blamed, and would have been executed if not for Beatrice’s confession.
In addition, The Changeling adheres to many structural and thematic elements commonly associated with the tragic genre. The play is marked by a sense of inexorable fate, as the characters are drawn towards a tragedy that they seemingly cannot escape. Heavy foreshadowing suggests that the events of the play have in some sense been ordained by the heavens, and the relentless progression of the plot towards a catastrophic conclusion, combined with the moral lessons embedded in the narrative, align with the classical definition of tragedy.
