The Changeling: Falling victim to your own plans

Before writing this blog I was troubled about whether to elaborate on the class discussion on innocence and women or start a new thought. However after rereading today’s discussed schemes I found a small sub-theme inside the bigger theme of innocence. This theme comes out when De Flores says that Beatrice has lost her own innocence and is the slave of the deed rather than the mastermind behind the deed. I realized that De Flores highlight the sub-theme of victimization. In this case I found it interesting because Beatrice becomes the victim of her own plan.

Although many may argue that others are the victim to Beatrice’s plans, she is rarely alone in making decisions. Along her side is  De Flores who comes up with the idea to burn a part of the house. She tries to save herself to prove her virtue; however, one of her lies leads to another which eventually leads to her death. De Flores mentions that she must think about her reputation above all else,but while thinking about her reputation she becomes lost in the things she does to save herself. She murders and lies and cheats; yet when push comes to shove she cannot take the weight of her own plans. An example of this is when she says she commits murder and deceit because of Alsemero’s love for her.

All her lies leads to her own death. She all along probably felt that she can control and tell people what to do, for example how she made Diaphanta go into bed with Alsemero.  However she could not control the actual truth.

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2 Responses to The Changeling: Falling victim to your own plans

  1. I think this is really insightful, and agree that Beatrice towards the end of the play was having to scramble around to cover one deceit with yet another. You also touch upon the idea of Beatrice wanting to prove her virtue, and this is interesting because the word not only connotes with being chaste, but of having high moral standards as well.

  2. PBerggren says:

    Shazia’s focusing on Beatrice’s victimization of herself provides another instance of the phenomenon we discussed in Faustus as articulated in the article by Helen Gardner called “The Tragedy of Damnation”: Beatrice Joanna develops her “moral consciousness” by sinning against herself.

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