Student Question
How does the representation of the upper class in The Beggar's Opera relate to the play's purpose?
Quick answer:
The Beggar's Opera is a satire that ridicules the upper class, as it pokes fun at the elite, fashionable Italian operas of its day and presents characters who aspire to act like the upper class even though they are thieves and scoundrels (suggesting, of course, that the elite often act like thieves and scoundrels, too).
To understand how John Gay's The Beggar's Opera portrays and criticizes the upper class, we must first understand that the play is a satire, a work of literature that reveals and scorns human folly and vice through sarcasm, irony, and ridicule. The upper class, therefore, is strongly mocked by the play, which shows all the silliness and abuses of that group of people.
First, The Beggar's Opera as a whole pokes fun at the Italian opera craze that was sweeping London in the early 18th century. The upper classes viewed Italian operas as the height of sophistication, even though most people couldn't understand them. Many of the operas were more than a little absurd in their plots and characters, but it was no matter whether the audience actually enjoyed or appreciated what was happening on the stage. The opera was the place for the elite to go...
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when they wanted to see and be seen.
The Beggar alludes to this operatic trend at the beginning of The Beggar's Opera when he says, “I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my Opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue.” He goes on to declare that his “opera” doesn't quite match the fashionable ones, for it lacks a “Recitative” as well as a “Prologue” and an “Epilogue.” In everything else, though, it is a true opera, he claims. Of course, it really is not, for true operas do have “recitatives,” sung speeches and dialogue, while The Beggar's Opera uses plain spoken forms (in English!) as well as simple, common tunes rather than the inflated “airs” normally found in Italian operas. Gay's composition, then, presents an “opera” for the common people while scoffing at the “high class” operas so popular with the London elite
What's more, The Beggar's Opera is filled to the brim with characters who are about as “common” as they come. In fact, most of them are about as low as they can go! While Italian operas were filled with upper class characters to whom the London elite aspired, The Beggar's Opera features thieves, prostitutes, highwaymen, jailers, and generally people of ill repute. Yet these characters, too, aspire to behave as does the upper class. Therein lies the satire, for if these characters think they are acting just like their “betters,” that certainly says something about the behavior of those “betters.” It is just like that of the thieves, prostitutes, highwaymen, jailers, and people of ill repute!
Let's look at a couple examples. In act I, scene I, Peachum is discussing which of his gang of thieves ought to be blacklisted, i.e., disposed of, in the next court session. He decides to allow the female bandits to escape, for “a good Sportsman always lets the Hen Partridges fly, because the Breed of the Game depends upon them.” Peachum compares his activity to an upper class hunting party, in which hunters often let female birds fly free. The author, perhaps, is hinting that the upper classes have their own way of determining which people also “fly free” and do not have to face the consequences of their actions.
A little later in the scene, after Polly reveals that she is married to Macheath, her mother accuses her of doing “like the Gentry,” like the upper class, by getting married. Of course, Polly has just wedded a notorious highwayman (whom we discover later has numerous “wives”), so her marriage is hardly respectable. Again, the author is hinting that there may be less-than-respectable elements of upper class marriages as well.
In act II, scene I, we meet Macheath's band of thieves, and hilariously, these men aspire to be philosophers. Matt the Mint remarks loftily,
We retrench the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jackdaw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, for Money was made for the Free-hearted and Generous, and where is the Injury of taking from another, what he hath not the Heart to make use of?
Remember, this is coming from the mouth of a bandit, but like an elite philosopher, he is trying to justify his own actions with “reasonable” arguments, and at the same time the author is taunting the greed of the upper class who covets wealth and hoards it but refuses to share it with those in need.
In the same scene, Macheath meets with his “lady friends” who are hardly “fine Ladies” or Ladies of Quality, as they think themselves to be. These women are prostitutes and thieves, but they put on the airs of delicate upper class women. Could the author be suggesting that the airs of those delicate upper class women are just as false as those of Macheath's “ladies”?
The Beggar himself sums up the heart of his satire at the end of The Beggar's Opera. “Through the whole Piece you may observe such a Similitude of Manners in high and low Life,” he explains, “that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road the fine Gentlemen.” In other words, are the thieves and lowlifes of The Beggar's Opera really aspiring to and imitating the upper class? Or do the members of the elite spend most of their time acting like thieves and lowlifes? The audience is left to ponder those questions for themselves.
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