Beatrice and De Flores’ relationship in The Changeling was very peculiar to me. Throughout the play she was disgusted by him, but when taking him up on his service she was then almost attached to his fate. The first introduction the audience has of their relationship is De Flores coming to talk to her but then she cuts him off showing her dominating status over him. It wasn’t until her passion for another man led her to the beginning of her end.
Beatrice was flirting with her demise when she flirted with De Flores to get him to kill Antonio. At this point she shows a break in the social boundaries by telling De Flores to stand up, rising him to her level. After committing the act, De Flores comes back to gain his reward. Accept, contrary to what Beatrice thinks, the reward he seeks is much greater then any monetary value. I saw this as him outsmarting Beatrice and making her in debt to him.
By neither of the characters specifying the reward for De Flores’ servitude, it places him in the perfect position. As soon as she asked him for his help she sealed her fate. De Flores was then able to gain the upper hand and this is truly the point where they become equal. Him physically then taking her virginity enforces that she just gave away her power. Her virginity was in fact the thing that made her most desirable, and without it she was then portrayed as less then.
At the end when De Flores stabs Beatrice is again another peculiar scene. She cries out in a mixture of pain and pleasure confusing to those that hear it. De Flores was not only to blame for her loss of status but now her loss of life. As they died by each other it almost seems poetic, but the fact that he stabbed her just shows how desperate he was to be so truly equal if not overpowering her.
Briana captures the intersection of power, sexuality, and death that we have seen in other plays as well. The coupling in Alsemero’s closet is like the coupling in the game of barley break (see the dialogue at 5.1.172-74) and enacts the familiar pun that likens orgasm to dying.
The coupling in the closet is genuinely disturbing because De Flores kills Beatrice-Joanna. They might have been having sex for the last time or he stabs her because he recognizes as the true murder, and one of a lower class — he might face harsh punishment, while she might get away. Perhaps De Flores ensures their mutual destruction.