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Act 2, Scene 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Beggar’s Opera, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Moral Corruption and Hypocrisy
Gender, Love, and Marriage
Class, Capitalism, and Inequality
Opera, High Art, and Performance
Summary
Analysis
Eight sex workers arrive at the tavern: Jenny Diver, Molly Brazen, Dolly Trull, Betty Doxy, Suky Tawdry, Mrs. Coaxer, Mrs. Vixen, and Mrs. Slammekin. Macheath provocatively greets and compliments each one. They dance while Macheath sings that they should enjoy themselves before their youth and beauty run out (Air 22). The women sit, drink, and praise each other’s thievery skill. Mrs. Coaxer, Mrs. Vixen, and Molly Brazen steal from textile merchants, while Jenny Diver picks men’s pockets. Macheath complains that Jenny isn’t fawning over him, like usual, but she reminds him that she’s surrounded by “Rivals.” She sings a racy song about a cock picking his favorite hen from the flock (Air 23).
The audience learns why Macheath really chose to stay behind in the tavern instead of following the other thieves. It’s not because he needed time to plan his revenge on Peachum, but rather because he was expecting a visit from these eight ladies. Clearly, this is not what Polly had in mind when she helped him escape. The women’s flirtatious banter would have seemed scandalous and hilarious to 18th-century audiences. And their names are all comical double-entendres that refer to their profession (just like the thieves’).
Themes
The women discuss the men who have “kept” them as mistresses. Suky Tawdry explains that her “last Friend” threw her out after she foolishly stole from him, and Mrs. Slammekin comments that Jewish men treat their mistresses well. Suky Tawdry likes old men, who pay well, while Mrs. Vixen has a strategy for profiting from young men: she bankrupts them, leads them into a life of crime, gets them transported to the colonies, and then repeats with a new man.
The women’s conversation shows that they are just as manipulative, ruthless, and self-interested as Macheath, the Peachums, and their thieves. Similarly, the women also view sex and romance primarily as a way to make money, and they take pride and pleasure in their ability to pull confidence tricks and ruin other people’s lives. Of course, this conversation also cleverly foreshadows the events that immediately follow it.
Themes
Jenny Diver asks if Macheath has money, but he says he lost it gambling. Jenny sings about how lawyers and gamblers steal men’s livelihoods (Air 24). She declares that honest men gamble with their lives, but not their money, and she and Suky Tawdry grab Macheath’s pistols to make their point. They start kissing him on the neck and make a hand signal to someone waiting outside. It’s Peachum. He rushes into the tavern with the police to arrest Macheath.
In a surprising, dramatic, but quite logical plot twist, the women follow their stories about taking advantage of unwitting men by turning Macheath in to Peachum. This is really a kind of poetic justice: just as Polly underestimated how corrupt and manipulative Macheath could be, Macheath underestimated the same about Peachum and the women. This scene also underlines the major difference between Macheath and Peachum: while they are both self-interested liars, Peachum is calculated and rational, whereas Macheath is naïve and lets his lust get the better of him.
Themes
