Y’are the deed’s creature”: Questioning Personal Autonomy in Thomas Middleton’s The Changeling

Doohyun Park, Ph.D. candidate, English

 

Characters in Thomas Middleton’s dramas mostly provide us with unique signifying types, private desires that are pursued within social rules and values, and, at the same time, self-presentations that affect their private values at the expense of public identity. Both private and public self are ingeniously interacting within the social value system,[1] as it were, so that for Middleton, the scenes of self-creation are far more sophisticated than those established by Shakespearean heroes. Middletonian heroes and heroines often see public responsibility (for example, a moral obligation like filial duty) as incorporated into private attributes—for example, most characters in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and A Trick to Catch the Old One are preoccupied with their private self-interests and desires.

 

Then, it is hard for us to find individuals who are steeped in collective identity or consciousness in Middleton’s plays, because they are inclined to read the public field as a private one for their own profit. Moreover, Middleton makes us see how the social value system is differently read by individuals, what Paul Yachnin calls “Middletonian irony” (Yachnin 121). Yachnin further argues: “Middleton’s play engages and disables interpretation by making and undoing tragic forms of selfhood and constructing and deconstructing interpretive frameworks” (125). Yachnin’s argument seems accurate because he rejects the foundational value of an autonomous individual in Middleton’s characterization, but I do not see public constructions of subject in Middleton’s play. Rather, my interest in this essay is in the private versions of self produced by the public environment, because I believe these private versions make characters’ meanings of action unstable and paradoxical. Middleton, indeed, vividly depicts the clash between differing private values in the ways that characters use their own agencies in a society they inhabit. Perhaps this complicates characters’ processes of self-creation and selfhood.

 

On the other hand, Theodore B. Leinwand, emphasizing the role of self-consciousness in Jacobean city dramas, writes that “All articulations of social roles are filtered through interests and ideology—but it is precisely this important truth that city comedy could stage” (80). Since Leinwand sees characters as heavily subject to ideological deployment, he is blind to the process of characters’ self-creation within the social environment. Middletonian characters mostly try to revise their social roles and duties, rather than to succumb to ideological pressure by negotiating their subjectivities between the given and the created. They see themselves as private individuals rather than as members of a community. No one takes public identity as an unavoidable track in Middleton’s plays.

 

Middleton’s tragedy, The Changeling gives us some important messages that might have otherwise passed unnoticed in terms of private value and morality. The play shows how Beatrice-Joanna’s attempts at autonomy become obstructed by other forces of value. Further, when characters pursue their private desires, there do not appear to be any objective standards that count as “right action” in the play. Beatrice, though she behaves according to her own will, is made unfree by contingent circumstances that exceed her power. This is why the result of her actions produces a paradoxical and unstable meaning.

 

L. C. Knight suggests that the play has an essential human morality (268). He, however, might overlook the contingent circumstances that bring on a paradox of moral value. Characters’ private values tend to override public codes and rules of morality. For example, Beatrice sees her social role and responsibility as a daughter as temporal and disposable. Her quest for authenticity at different moments in the play itself marks a fault line between sex and morality. More specifically, her process of self-creation exposes a paradoxical meaning of action, because public autonomy—for example, capitalistic, patriarchal, and hierarchical structures—raises ethical problems, not a foundational basis to assess some actions. Thus, we cannot see a moral dilemma in which Shakespeare’s Hamlet has experienced in the society he inhabits. Perhaps this is why characters’ morality remains suspended in the sense that idiosyncratic standards of value forbid us to offer a clear dichotomy of good and bad. So I shall argue in this essay that Beatrice-Joanna’s quest for private desire or authenticity in Thomas Middleton’s The Changeling produces a paradoxical meaning between the intended effect of action and the actual result.

 

Beatrice-Joanna’s sexual desire, which drives the action, causes her to face up to the unpredictable tragedy even if she initially has the freedom to act according to her will. The gap between her action and its effect makes us question the meaningful action she intended. What is more, the fact that she finally yields up her subjectivity to external force attests that she is a creature of circumstance, because the contingent circumstances undergirding social interaction become something that exceeds Beatrice’s power. Middleton shows the instability of human purpose and the subjection of humanity to fortune through Beatrice’s process of self-creation.

 

The tragic politics of desire and power in the play are deftly established in the three men, Beatrice’s fiancé, Alonzo de Piracquo, her lover, Alsemero, and a servant, De Flores. Before the play opens, she has been betrothed to Alonzo de Piracquo, whose social position will further the ambitions of her father, Vermandero. However, she has fallen in love with Alsemero whom she already has seen in an Alicante temple. So Vermandero’s will is for Beatrice to marry Piracquo, while Beatrice’s will is set on having Alsemero, and De Flores’ will is to have her. In the complex web of idiosyncratic selfhood and desire, characters’ agencies are damaged by the torrent of private passions, which continually beget contingent circumstances. In the opening scene the dialogue among Vermandero, Alsemero, and Beatrice seems a prelude to some volatile event for her:

Vermandero: I tell you, sir, the gentleman’s [Piracquo]

        complete,  A courtier and a gallant, enrich’d

        With many fair and noble ornaments.

        I would not change him for a son-in-law

        For any he in Spain, the proudest he,

                And we have great ones, that you know.

Alsemero:      He’s much

        Bound to you, sir.

Vermandero:  He shall be bound to me,

        As fast as this tie can hold him; I’ll want

        My will else.

Beatrice (Aside): I shall want mine if you do it. (I, i, 208-16)

At this moment, Beatrice’s given condition lies in the fact that she cannot choose her own husband at her own will. However, her aside indicates that her will is strong enough to pursue her private desire by herself. Her passion and unique personality forbid her from making a rational judgment of the given situation. For example, in the opening scene Beatrice talks about the connection between sight and judgement:

Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgments

And should give certain judgment what they see;

But they are rash sometimes, and tell us wonders

Of common things, which when our judgments find,

They can then check the eyes, and call them blind. (I, i, 70-4)

Her speech shows that private passion could override reason or judgment. For her, to follow impulse and passion might mean abandoning her social duty and role, which means that she knows no other world than the world capable of fulfilling her wishes. Richard Levin points out that her childish ability is limited to the visual principle of judgment that whatever she wants is right, owing to her unique personality, which contains “an innate delicacy of taste, a fine appreciation of the surfaces, particularly the visual surfaces, of life, upon which her responses tend to center” (39). Perhaps such a quality prevents her from admitting circumstances that might interfere with the achievement of her will and with her establishment of a rational, moral consciousness. For example, she tells De Flores who is supposed to serve her:

      O, ‘tis the soul of freedom!

I should not then be forced to marry one

I hate beyond all depths, I should have power

Then to oppose my loathings, nay, remove ‘em

Forever from my sight. (II, ii, 109-13)

Admittedly, she considers social codes and norms as incompatible with her private value. She believes that she is able to create her life by revising what counts as a public field: her self-knowledge. She sees public autonomy as a surmountable condition that enables her to fulfill authentic selfhood. Probably she may have thought that other people fall under her power, especially De Flores and Diaphanta, because of their inferior social position.

 

In scene i of Act II Beatrice’s soliloquy shows how her mind works:

It is a sign he [Alsemero] makes his choice with

judgment. Then I appear in nothing more approv’d

Than making choice of him;

For ‘tis a principle, he that can choose

That bosom well, who of his thoughts partakes,

Proves most discreet in every choice he makes.

Methinks I love now with the eyes of judgment

And see the way to merit, clearly see it. (II, i, 7-14)

This is a remarkable speech that shows how Beatrice invests circumstances with her own meaning by revealing her private view, a view that draws a sharp distinction between passion and reason. When she tries to choose Alsemero, she creates her own personal model, following her private values. From her point of view, her father’s will that asks Beatrice to marry to Alonzo should function as an obstacle to mangle her image of authentic selfhood. She believes that her erotic choice should be a true quest for her authentic self, rather than her father’s self-centered search for lucre. For her, to become who she truly is is to reject who she is not. The subsequent situations may present something beyond Beatrice’s will and choice.

 

In Act II, she has three problems to solve: how to avoid marriage to Alonzo, how to get Alsemero, and how to avoid from De Flores’ attention. These scenes should be turning points in which her attempt at autonomy is most distinct, but which, at the same time, brings about her downfall that determines the result of her action—her plot to kill Alonzo and to deceive Alsemero on their wedding night. Her sexual desire for Alsemero makes her use De Flores whom she thinks should be subservient to her. She tempts De Flores to kill Alonzo:

Beatrice: Then take him [Alonzo] to thy fury!

De Flores:      I thirst for him . . . .

Beatrice (Aside):          I shall rid myself

     Of two inveterate loathings at one time,

      Piracquo, and his dog-face. (II, ii, 133-149)

Apparently, De Flores’s remark suggests that her scheme would be successful, and there are some reasons why she thinks and acts as she does. Beatrice is blind to reality, assuming that De Flores will leave the country after getting well paid by her. She congratulates herself: “I have got him [Alsemero] now the liberty of the house:  / So wisdom by degrees works out her freedom” (III, iv, 12-3). However, what looked like unlimited possibility for her desire turns out to be her bondage. The tragedy lies in the fact that she fails to realize that De Flores also has his sexual desire for her and for his own goal. Probably she assumes that her servant enables what she wants to fulfill, without being aware that he might have his own motive.[2] De Flores says:

          ‘tis not possible

My service should draw such a cause from you.

Offended? Could you think so? That were much

For one of my performance, and so warm

Yet in my service. (III, iv, 53-7)

Beatrice had underestimated De Flores’s power. She might have thought that he is devoid of masculine autonomy, which accords with feudal code. She invokes the natural order which sets limits between her and his blood: “Think but upon the distance that creation / Set ‘twixt thy blood and mine” (II, iv, 130-1). Because of her misjudgment, she puts herself in his power in the sense that her desire exactly causes her destiny to be subject to that of De Flores, which means that she becomes a victim of her own action: “I’m in a labyrinth” (III, iv, 72). It also leads to the irreconcilable discrepancy between her intention and its effects. She fails to realize the boundaries in which her action and judgments are enclosed.

 

Scene iv of Act III shows the climax of the discord between Beatrice and De Flores. In this scene, Beatrice tries to separate herself from any responsibility for the deed done by De Flores: “At the stag’s fall the keeper has his fees: ‘Tis soon applied, all dead men’s fees are yours, sir” (III, iv, 39-40). When De Flores denies her offer of 3,000 gold florins, she comes to realize that her intended plan is thwarted. She states: “Bless me! I am now in worse plight that I was; I know not what will please him.—For my fear’s sake” (III, iv, 76-7). She reminds him of the social gap that separates them. But De Flores eventually dominates her by allowing her to be aware of the truth of her situation:

Push! Fly not to your birth, but settle you

In what the act has made you, y’are no more

now; You must forget your parentage to me:

Y’are the deed’s creature; by that name

You lost your first condition, and I

challenge you. (III, iv, 134-8)

This scene, in which Beatrice is totally dominated by De Flores, is signified as an interesting exemplar that highlights De Flores’s role as a hierarchical subversive by betraying a master’s moral shortcoming.[3] Beatrice’s youth has caused her mind to move toward a whirlwind of passion even if she knows that her action gives rise to a moral problem, because she has committed a crime. Beatrice’s regret exposes a fault line between sex and morality: “O misery of sin! Would I have been bound / Perpetually unto my living hate / In that Piracquo, than to hear these words” (III, iv, 127-9). This may be a crucial point that her idiosyncratic selfhood is obliged to create values and patterns of behavior. Further, she did not realize the desire she is causing—for example, when she touches his face with her own hand, De Flores is enraptured. The sentence, “Y’are the deed’s creature” should be understood as a paradoxical meaning in which Beatrice, who tried to exert power, fails to bring on her effectiveness. Her intentional action does not turn out to be meaningful for herself in the way she intended, as it were.

 

Nevertheless she still fails to learn that there are limits that she can comprehend in the entire contingent world through her encounter with De Flores. For example, fearing that Alsemero may discover the truth about her with his virginity test, she plans to substitute Diaphanta to take her place in the bridal bed. She states: “Seeing that wench now / A trick comes in my mind; ‘tis a nice piece / Gold cannot purchase” (IV, i, 52-4). Again she misjudges her waiting woman’s action. And again, Beatrice is indignant at her waiting woman, calling her “this whore” (V, i, 23). The unintentional aspect of her action repeatedly functions as a constraint on her will because this action makes Beatrice more dependent upon De Flores, in which her damage leads to Alsemero’s suspicion. She tells De Flores: “I’m forc’d to love thee now / ‘Cause thou provid’st so carefully for my honour” (V, i, 46-7). Here her honorable social superiority and female virtue are mercilessly shattered. Swapan Chakravorty argues that the virginity test “deflates the norm of ‘honour’ by which De Flores’s social better lives” (158). Her quest for authentic self results in dirtying herself with dishonor, something she never wanted, because the virginity test, intended by Alsemero who is suspicious of Beatrice’s virginity, makes her effort for self-creation vain. She never wanted to tarnish herself with the crimes she has committed, but this tarnish becomes inevitable because her idiosyncratic personality and the circumstances that drive her desire never prevent her from carrying out her plan. Her condition in the world reflects the instability of her purpose and ambition.

 

The discrepancy between Beatrice’s intention and the actual result allows us to call into question her autonomy. In this respect she can never be a center of meaningful action in the sense that the arbitrary situation intervened to qualify her agency. When she protests against her father and develops her self-centered passion, she sees individual good as prior to social order. She conceives of herself as a private individual rather than as a member of a community. Moreover, though there is a gap between intention and effect due to contact with others, Beatrice herself is responsible for her destiny. She first knew what she desired and was doing; for herself, there is initially no epistemological gap between intention and action, but she fails to realize the existence of relative arbitrariness. Her tragedy lies in the fact that her freedom has become, to a great degree, thwarted by another’s power and in the fact that she fails to realize that there is the arbitrariness that makes her complete possession of meaningful action impossible in the world. T.S. Eliot writes that The Changeling “is the tragedy of the not naturally bad but irresponsible and undeveloped nature, caught in the consequences of its own action” (142). Probably this could be a result of her inexperience. She has tried to handle the entire circumstance with her limited and finite self. She has behaved without taking into consideration exterior, particular forces: she thinks and acts as her interior mind prompts her to. Thus, although she is the author of her action, her private value produces a paradoxical meaning because the action results in a very different outcome from what she intended.

 

Works Cited

 

Primary Sources

 

Middleton, Thomas.  Five Plays. Ed. Bryan Loughrey and Neil Taylor. New York: Penguin Books,

     1988.

 

 

Secondary Sources

 

Burnett, Mark Thornton.  Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture:

     Authority and Obedience.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

 

Chakravorty, Swapan. Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton.  Oxford: Clarendon

     Press, 1996.

 

Eliot, T.S. Selected Essays.  New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1950.

 

Leinwand, Theodore B.  The City Staged: Jacobean Comedy, 160 -1613. Madison, Wisconsin:

     University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.

 

Levin, Richard.  The Multiple Plot in English Renaissance Drama. Chicago: University of Chicago

     Press, 1971.

 

Yachnin, Paul.  Stage-Wrights: Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and the making of Theatrical

     Value.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.