Tragedy or Comedy? -Hanna A.

            The Beggar’s Opera, by John Gay, is a work that has many elements of both a classic comedy as well as a tragedy. However, in a debate between the narrators (the Beggar and the Player) at the end of the play, the choice is made to make it ultimately a comedy by ending the opera in marriage. However, much of the play is quite tragic in a miserably amusing way. And if the opera had ended with Macheath’s death, rather than his saving and marriage to Polly, the play would have gained much in depth and meaning, rather than drifting off into meaninglessness.

            With Macheath being saved rather than killed, Polly and Lucy learn nothing, and the cycle of depravity depicted at the beginning of the play is forced to continue on. There is no moral, no poetic realization from any of the characters, and the only real movement is that Macheath gives up his adulterous ways and chooses just one wife. He sings, “Though willing to all, with but one he retires” (Act 3, scene 17, 2833). Even this choice is not for any particular moral reason, but just because it is easier for him since Polly is the only person he is legally married to. And none of the women see what a scoundrel he is, but instead accept his decision as both just and right. 

            What makes even less sense is that Lucy, who would have given her very life to save Macheath, does not put up a fight at all when he chooses to marry Polly. Though Polly is the only person he is actually legally married to, it seems strange that there is no fight between the women even after all the bickering that took place earlier in the play. Even stranger is that the depravity that is constant throughout the play is never addressed, resolved, or even worsened. What was bad continues to be bad and no one ever changes.

            So, though there are many comedic elements in the play with making fun of the institution of marriage and making thievery funny, it seems that the play is fundamentally rather tragic. It is all about how humans never change and how whatever is easiest is the best choice no matter the future consequences. Whatever the perks of choosing not to kill off Macheath at the end, the value of the work as whole could have been increased with his death because then some sort of change, moral, or new element of true regret or grief could have been introduced. Without it, the opera continues on in superficiality with no end in sight.