The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley

The definition of a changeling in the period meant a person who was fickle or changed their mind a lot; a person put in place of something or someone else, or a half-witted person. There are, thus, changelings all over this play. Antonio impersonates an idiot, Diaphanta pretends to be Beatrice, DeFlores pretends to be Alsemero, Franciso goes into the madhouse, and Alsemero pretends to be Alonzo. The major themes of the play are that of virginity and marriage. Beatrice is arranged to be married with Alonzo de Piracquo, but instead falls in love with Alsemero. To get out of this marriage she uses De Flores affections for her to have him kill Alonzo. But, De Flores has her trapped now, because she can’t not admit him to her bedchamber or he will tell all, and so she loses her virginity to him. Beatrice, now afraid that her secrets will be found out, has Diaphanta pretend to be her on her wedding night with Alsemero, but Alsemero is a suspicious lover and has a bunch of “virginity” tests, which Diaphanta passes, but Beatrice knows she won’t. Beatrice is supposed to switch places with Diaphanta right after the act, but Diaphanta is in her pleasure and forgets to come right back. De Flores then starts a fire to try and flush her out of the bedchamber and kill her, which works. However, they are found out and De Flores and Beatrice kill themselves.

The secondary plot is that an old doctor, Alibius, has a young wife, Isabella, whom he cannot satisfy sexually. Alibius becomes afraid that she will cheat on him and commands his servant, Lollio to lock her away. In Alibius’ house there are two groups of individuals—mad men and fools—which he doesn’t want to come into contact with Isabella. Antonio pretends to be an idiot so that he can be admitted to the house. Lollio ends up falling for Isabella himself, but this story is a foil for Beatrice’s and Isabella is able to retain her virginity in spite of all the madmen around her.

My own personal interests in the play all relate to the body and nature. There are multiple references to the eyes as sentinels, watchers of time, judgment, and others. De Flores’ physical deformation is overlooked by Alonzo, to his downfall, but it does seem to represent his inner character. The inner and outer then seem important, but not always representative of the truth. There are numerous mentions of poisons and venoms which are dangerous nature internalized. There’s also an interesting scene when De Flores kills Alonzo—they’re in the “earthworks” so deep in the castle, underground, perhaps actually in the earth itself. After De Flores kills Alonzo, he finds his diamond on his finger, but he cannot remove it without removing Alonzo’s finger. There’s something there about the diamond in the earth with a human cost that I found interesting and I want to look up more of what diamond mining was like in the early modern period.