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In The Changeling, a play filled with status-obsessed characters and precarious class hierarchies, diamonds symbolize the way that various people turn each other into commodities. When the servant DeFlores kills the wealthy Alonzo de Piracquo, he severs his victim’s finger, so desperate to get Alonzo’s diamond ring that the horror of dismembering another human being does not even cross his mind. And though Beatrice pretends that DeFlores’s diamond theft disgusts her, her thinking is equally transactional: rather than acknowledging DeFlores as her partner in crime, she merely tries to pay him off (using her own “jewels”) and send him away.
Moreover, while DeFlores’s casual attitude toward the severed finger is explicitly gruesome, the play also uses diamonds to represent less drastic forms of objectification. Alsemero, desperate to marry Beatrice despite the oddities he notices in her personality, insists that this “true deserver” of his love “like a diamond sparkles”; by describing Beatrice in this way, Alsemero turns Beatrice from a person he wants to get to know into a prize he hopes to possess.
Diamonds Quotes in The Changeling
The The Changeling quotes below all refer to the symbol of Diamonds. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 2, Scene 1
Quotes
BEATRICE: Methinks I love now with the eyes of judgment
And see the way to merit, clearly see it.
A true deserver like a diamond sparkles,
In darkness you may see him, that’s in absence,
Which is the greatest darkness falls on love;
Ye he is best discern’d then
With intellectual eyesight.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Changeling LitChart as a printable PDF.
Diamonds Symbol Timeline in The Changeling
The timeline below shows where the symbol Diamonds appears in The Changeling. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 2, Scene 1
...now with the eyes of judgment,” she sighs, noting that “a true deserver like a diamond sparkles.” But this new love for Alsemero only makes Beatrice resent her father’s commitment to...
(full context)
Act 3, Scene 2
...several times. Alonzo cries out in pain, then dies. As Alonzo collapses, DeFlores notices a diamond ring on the dead man’s finger. DeFlores tries to pull the ring off, but it...
(full context)
Act 3, Scene 4
...eyes; our sweet’st delights are ever born more weeping”). He then presents Beatrice with Alonzo’s diamond ring, still attached to Alonzo’s finger. Beatrice is horrified by this, though DeFlores does not...
(full context)
