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Act 3, Scene 2
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
Lockit and Filch meet. Lockit tells Filch that he looks hungry and exhausted. Filch explains that he has taken over for the “favourite Child-getter”—he is constantly sleeping with one woman prisoner after another because the law prohibits executing them while they’re pregnant. Lockit praises “the Vigor and Prowess” of the man who usually does the job, and he asks Filch where Peachum is. Filch explains that Peachum is at his lock (the warehouse that serves as his operation’s headquarters). Lockit resolves to go find him there.
Through Filch’s absurd new job, Gay piles on the dark humor and once again highlights how deeply twisted and corrupt England had become. The policy of sparing pregnant women from execution may have been well-intentioned, but in reality, the prisoners twisted it into yet another strategy for getting away with their crimes. Ironically, this seems to be the only situation in which anyone in this play actually wants to get pregnant.
Themes
Literary Devices
