The Threepenny Opera: Act 1, Scene 3 Summary & Analysis

Polly returns home to Peachum’s Establishment for Beggars and loudly, starkly announces to her parents that she is married to Macheath. Mrs. Peachum laments that after all the money she and her husband have spent on fine dresses and hats for their daughter she has now thrown herself into the gutter “like a rotten tomato.”

In response to her mother’s tirade, Polly begins to sing a song about her marriage to Macheath. Polly reveals through song that she’s always known she’d turn down a “rich” or “nice” fellow who courted her in the right way and asked for her hand.  The only man who has ever interested her is Macheath—who never asked for her hand or her permission, but rather “hung his bowler hat upon the nail inside [her] bedroom / And applied himself to his task.” Now, though she’s not a proper lady, she’s found the one person she could never tell “No.”

After Polly concludes her song, Peachum and Mrs. Peachum continue lamenting that their big-headed daughter has married a thief and a criminal. Mrs. Peachum is so scandalized she believes she will faint. Peachum derides Polly for becoming a “crook’s trollop” and breaking her mother’s heart. Polly, wearing a “radiantly happy expression” even in the face of her parents’ tirades, fetches her mother some brandy to calm her nerves.

Several beggars enter the shop. One begins complaining about the quality of the false stump Peachum has sold him. He says that if he wanted to receive “junk,” he’d just cut off his own leg. Peachum offers the beggar a second stump to add to his pitifulness, which the beggar happily accepts. Peachum moves on to examining the other beggars, chiding them for letting their bruises and scabs fade and for eating when they should be starving themselves thin. Peachum tells the beggars that what he needs are "artists” who can give people “the right sort of shock.” None of them has delivered on that front so far—and so he declines to offer them his services any longer. The beggars leave.

Polly begs her father to accept her marriage to Macheath. Though the living he makes is non-traditional, she says, he’s able to support her—he’s a “first-class burglar” who has a lot of money saved. Peachum, however, suggests Polly get a divorce right away. Polly insists she loves Macheath. Mrs. Peachum asks how Polly isn’t ashamed of herself. Polly again insists she’s in love—and won’t let her parents “rob” her of “the greatest thing in the world.” Mrs. Peachum laments that when Macheath is hanged, “half a dozen” of his other women will show up to mourn him.

Peachum declares that a hanging is a great idea. He sends Polly outside, and she leaves the room. Peachum and Mrs. Peachum begin hatching a plan to get Macheath hanged. Mrs. Peachum says that Macheath is probably at a brothel with his whores—she plans to go to one in Wapping, talk to the prostitutes there, discern Macheath’s whereabouts, and report him to the sheriff. Polly, who has been listening at the door, bursts into the room and tells her mother that Macheath would never even speak to a whore—what’s more the sheriff is his boyhood friend, and so there is nothing in Scotland Yard’s records that anyone could use to indict Macheath.

Peachum, however, declares there is evidence against Macheath—for he has “enticed […] Polly Peachum from her parental home under the pretext of marriage.” Mrs. Peachum admits that she fears her husband will never be able to best “the greatest criminal in London.” Polly defiantly says she’ll be glad to accompany her father to the sheriff—to prove that there’s nothing that can be held against her husband.

Polly and her parents walk to the front of the stage to sing the “First Threepenny-Finale on the Uncertainty of Human Circumstances.” Polly sings that her aim is to “reward a man’s persistence” just once in her “dark existence.” Mrs. Peachum sings about how she wishes she could be the one to help Polly through the sadness of being alive. Peachum sings about how though “the right to happiness is fundamental,” few actually are able to attain that right. People want to be good, he believes—but the world is not the sort of place where goodness can be embodied, since “supplies are scarce and human beings base.”

Polly and Mrs. Peachum admit that they, too fear that “the world is poor and men are bad”—and that there is “nothing more to add.” Peachum triumphantly declares that he knows he’s right, and always has been. He elaborates further on how terrible people are to one another, positing that loyalty, gratitude, and goodness are simply too much to ask of humanity. All three members of the Peachum family step forward and sing about how “the whole thing is depressing,” ending the act by declaring that “everything’s a heap of junk.”