The Characterization of

Women in Thomas
Middleton & William
Rowleys play:

The Changeling
10/09/2011
English Drama
Beatriz G.S.

INDEX

1.

INTRODUCTION. ............................................................................................................... 3

2.

THE CHARACTERIZATION OF WOMEN IN THE CHANGELING. ....................................... 3

2.1 BEATRICE. ............................................................................................................................ 4

2.2 ISABELLA. ............................................................................................................................. 9
2.3

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN BEATRICE AND ISABELLA. ...................... 10

3.

CONCLUSION. ................................................................................................................. 11

4.

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 13

THE CHARACTERIZATION OF WOMEN IN THOMAS

MIDDLETON & WILLIAN ROWLEYS PLAY:
THE CHANGELING

1. INTRODUCTION.

The

Renaissance was a time where to be a woman brought about images of a

meek person who bent to the will of her male superiors [].1 Since their birth, women
were taught to obey and serve men, as they were believed inferior to them. Females
were also thought to be responsible for mens sins, tempting them to go away from God
as well as Eve did to Adan in The Book of Genesis. During the English Renaissance,
which included the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, such feminine ideals as chastity,
obedience, and submissiveness were promoted. These qualities of females were seen in
some way, shape, or form in the characters of many Renaissance authors, including
such notables as William Shakespeare and Edmund Spencer. Chastity is a virtue very
much so prominently present in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene [], while
obedience and submissiveness [] is evident in, amongst others of his works,
Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew. 2

2. THE CHARACTERIZATION OF WOMEN IN THE CHANGELING.

In The Changeling, Thomas Middleton and William Rowley characterize two

kinds of women; the one who is loyal to men and the one who is disloyal to men. The
1

Llim, 2007.

Llim, 2007.

former is Isabella, who remains loyal to her husband, although she is tempted to be
unfaithful to him; the latter is Beatrice Joanna, who is disloyal to three men: she is
disloyal to his fathers will, to her future husband Alonzo de Piracquo and to her final
husband Alsemero. The other feminine character who appears in the play is Diaphanta,
who belongs to the disloyal women group, but in her case she is not disloyal to a man,
but to her mistress Beatrice Joanna. Therefore, this essay is focused on the different
characterizations that Middleton3 depicted to the characters of Isabella and Beatrice
Joanna4 regarding obedience, submissiveness and loyalty to men. This essay is also
going to compare the characterization of these two women characters in The Changeling
to other women characters in contemporary Shakespeares plays.
2.1 BEATRICE.

The first woman character who appears in the play is Beatrice. She is one of the
main characters who take part in the main tragic plot. She is firstly depicted as beauty,
or having beauties, by Alsemero, who is in love with her. Once Alsemero expresses his
love to her, she regrets having been engaged to another man some days before. Here,
she is characterized as a capricious woman who changes her mind easily:
(Beatrice referring to Alsemero)
[] Sure mine eyes were mistaken:
This was the man was meant me - that he should come
So near his time, and miss it!

Samuel Schoenbaum, in Middletons Tragedies: A Critical Study (1955) holds that Middleton is
responsible for the characterization of the principal figures and the general conduct of the main action,
Middleton & Rowley, 1990.
4

Beatrice from now on.

(I.i 80-82)5

Then, she is gradually changing her capriciousness into irrational impulses which make
her behave violently, without thinking in the consequences, to finally obtain what she
wants to. Beatrices reason to behave this way is because of her rejection to obey his
father, Vermandero, who wants her to marry the man he wants to for her, Alonzo de
Piracquo:
(Beatrice)
[] How well were I now
If there were none such name known as Piracquo,
Nor no such tie as the command of parents! []
(II.ii 18-20)

She complains of her impossibility of choosing her husband by her own; she wishes she
could be free from males domination:
(Beatrice)
Oh, 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
For ever from my sight
(II.ii 109-113)

All the quotations in this essay have been extracted from Middleton & Rowley, 2006.

After this, she decides not to be obedient and acts against her fathers will, but making
him think that the events are happening in a natural way, therefore, to some people in
the play she seems to be obedient to her father. It is an act of rebelliousness which is not
usual of a woman of the Elizabethan period. Instead of rebelling herself against the
womens conventions of that time by running away with the man she loves, as Jessica
did in Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice, she feigns to obey his father, showing
herself as the society's ideal image of submissive woman, and secretly, tries to get rid of
her fianc, Alonzo, by persuading her servant Deflores to kill him. Here, Beatrice is
characterized as devil, or in Shakespeares words, as a dark lady, as well as Lady
Macbeth in Shakespeares Macbeth. These dark ladies are tragic, doomed figures,6
and have the skills7 at convincing men to do what they cannot do by themselves in order
to fulfill their desires. Contrary to Lady Macbeth, in this case Beatrice does not look for
power, but for love or the chance of choosing her husband by her own. In both cases,
their influence on men is primarily sexual; Lady Macbeth takes advantage of her
husbands love to achieve her purposes and Beatrice, unconsciously, offers her chastity
to Deflores in exchange for his help:
(Deflores)
[] That thy virginity were perfect in thee,
I should but take my recompense with grudging,
As if I had but half my hopes I agreed for.
(III.iii 117-119)

Dark Lady (character), 2010.

Beauty and sexuality.

(Beatrice)
Why tis impossible thou canst be so wicked,
Or shelter such a cunning cruelty,
To make his death the murderer of my honour. [...]
(III.iii 120-122)

Maybe it is not just Beatrices selfishness and capriciousness what makes her behave in
such an irrational way, but societys conventions of that time; the tradition of womens
submission to men and the question of honour played a role on Beatrices wrong
choices. Because of her capriciousness, she chooses not to marry the man that
Vermandero has imposed to her; due to her submission to her father, she chooses not to
tell Vermandero she wants to marry Alsemero so as to not to show disloyalty to her
father; and to protect Alsemeros life, her fathers honour, and mostly herself, she
decides to get rid of Alonzo instead of telling him she loves another man. Therefore,
Beatrice starts a chain of violence in the play that leads from one murdering to another.
Firstly, she asks Deflores to kill Alonzo:
(Beatrice)
[] Theres horror in my service, blood and danger
Can those be things to sue for?
(II.ii 118-119)

Then Deflores kills Diaphanta because Beatrice thinks that she is betraying her by
telling Alsemero that she has lost her virginity:
(Beatrice)
[] No trusting of her life with such a secret,
That cannot rule her blood to keep her promise.
7

Besides, I have some suspicion of her faith to me,

Because I was suspected of my Lord,
And it must come from her. []
(V.i 6-10)
And finally, Deflores death and her own is the result of their disrespect to peoples life
and Beatrices lack of chastity.
Apart from being selfish, capriciousness, disloyal, disobedient, violent, irrational and
impulsive, Beatrice is also characterized as intensely sexual. Her sexual impulse is
stirred quite easily from Alonzo to Alsemero []. What propels her is her libido. 8 She
is also attracted to Deflores without knowing it. The attraction is unconscious [].
Her feeling is sexual: she describes him as a poison.9 One example of her unconscious
attraction to Deflores takes place when she drops her glove (I.i 218). In the tradition of
Elizabethan Drama, dropping a glove symbolized a sexual invitation from a woman to a
man. It is unclear whether the dropping of the glove is accidental, or meant as a
conscious invitation to Alsemero; but the fact that it occurs during an aside expressing
her pathological aversion to Deflores suggests that it may be unconsciously aimed at
him [].10 At the end of the play, when all Beatrices sins are discovered by
Alsemero, she is depicted as a whore:
(Alsemero)
[] Heres beauty changed
To ugly whoredom []
(V.iii 197-198)
8

Middleton & Rowley, 1990, (p.26).

Middleton & Rowley, 1990, (p.25).

10

Middleton & Rowley, 2006, (p.17).

2.2 ISABELLA.

Isabella, who takes a role in the comic subplot, appears for the first time in the
play in Act III Scene ii, although she was mentioned before (I.ii 16) by Alibius, her
husband, who cures mad and fool people in his madhouse. He depicts her as a young
woman, younger than him. Alibius is afraid of losing her, so he thinks that the best way
to avoid Isabella committing adultery with another man is putting her aside from
mentally normal men, that is, the patients visitors. Although Alibius has no reason to
distrust on her, he is not right in his assumption:
(Isabella)
Here the restraind current might make breach,
Spite of the watchful bankers. Would a woman stray,
She need not gad abroad to seek her sin
It would be brought home one ways or other:
The needles point will to the fixd north,
Such drawing Arctics womens beauties are.
(III.ii 204-209)

Isabella is characterized as an honest, obedient, and loyal woman. Indeed, she has
several opportunities to be unfaithful to her husband, but she seems to be a conservative
woman who praises the institution of marriage and the importance of wives to be
faithful and obedient; therefore, her common sense makes her remain faithful to her
husband and her wedding vows. Although she is obedient and loyal to Alibius, her
sexual libido cannot avoid her being attracted to other men. That is why she notices
Franciscus when she was bored in the madhouse and then she is interested in Antonio.
However, she is conscious about what is good and what is bad, so her interaction with
9

them is just to amuse herself and does not lose control of the situation as Lollio suggests
when he says Cuckoo, cuckoo (III.ii 184), referring to Isabella and Antonio.
Isabella could be compared to Shakespeares Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
Isabella, as well as Portia, shows a strong obedience and submissiveness to her male
superiors. Both of them go on keeping obedience to them even when they are not
present. Portia marries the man that her father chose for her, even after her fathers
death, meanwhile Isabella has no contact to sane men in her husbands absence and also
shows obedience to her husbands servant Lollio, who supplies Alibius place when he
is away, by not allowing her being in contact to the patients visitors:
(Isabella)
Is it your masters pleasure or your own
To keep me in this pinfold?
(Lollio)
Tis for my masters pleasure, lest, being taken in another mans
corn, you might be pounded in another place.
(Isabella)
Tis very well, and hell prove very wise.
(III.ii 7-13)

2.3 DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN BEATRICE AND ISABELLA.

Isabella and Beatrice are two different women who belong to two different
backgrounds; [] the aristocratic Beatrices surrender to vice is contrasted with the
bourgeois Isabellas resolute adherence to her wedding vows.11 Isabella represents the
triumph of virtue, whereas Beatrice is the depravity of vice, sin and temptation. This
11

Middleton & Rowley, (2006), (p.15).

10

model of characters also appears in Shakespeares plays such as Portia and Jessica in
The Merchant of Venice, or Bianca and Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. They
show two different kinds of female characters similar to the ones in The Changeling.
Therefore, Beatrice, Jessica and Katherine are characterized as disobedient women who
struggle against male domination and look for freedom, while Isabella, Portia and
Bianca are depicted as the good women who obey their male superiors.
Although Isabella and Beatrice are depicted as two different women, they share some
features in common. The first one is their beauty and the sexual attraction they lead on
men. All men who appear in the subplot are sexually attracted to Isabella, whereas three
men in the main plot, Alonzo, Alsemero and Deflores, are attracted to Beatrice. The
second feature they have in common is their easy changeable interest in men. Beatrice
is first interested in Alonzo, later on she changes her mind when she meets Alsemero,
and then she feels an attraction towards Deflores. The same way, Isabella firstly gets
interested in Franciscus, but after meeting Antonio she changes her mind and pays more
attention to the latter.

3. CONCLUSION.

Middleton and Rowleys characterization in The changeling of Isabella as a

virtue woman and Beatrice as a vice woman seems to have a moral purpose. Like in
morality plays, these two characters are meant to teach a lesson, in this case, to women.
It is a kind of conservative propaganda that tries to avoid women having their own
ideas, taking their own decisions or being not dependent of men. By the characterization
of Beatrice and Isabella, the authors possibly try to leave the message that virtuosity
women, who obey their husbands, will have a nice recompense because of their good
11

behavior, whereas vice women, disloyal to men will be punished: Isabella achieves
what she wants, that is, her husbands trust, and Beatrice finally dies because of her
sins. Beatrice is the first woman learning the lesson, so at the end of the play she asks
Alsemero for forgiveness, as she realises she has behaved in a wrong way. This way of
showing disobedient women as sinners may be originated due to the influence that antifeminine ideas of that time could have had over Middleton. There were some people
who were against the emancipation of women from men. Therefore, they were against
the idea of women being educated, because knowledge could make they think and have
their own ideas, and then, rebel against men. In his First blast of the trumpet against
monstrous regiment of women (1558), John Knox, a Scottish religious reformer, says
that woman in her greater perfection was made to serve and obey man, not rule and
command him. Following this pattern, Beatrice is shown as an undesirable or incorrect
woman, while the character of Isabella is shown as the model of the perfect woman.
However, the character of Isabella is simple, lacks of interest and do not hook the
audience; for this reason, the role of the submissive woman will not inspire writers in
the future, and characters like Isabella will remain as secondary characters. In contrast,
the character of Beatrice is more complex and scheming. Therefore, the role of
disobedient and non submissive woman, which is unusual for a woman in that period,
will be the model of woman taken for many authors in prospective plays. Writers from
19th century will start introducing similar characters like Henry Ibsens Nora in A Dolls
House who becomes a model of independent woman, and an icon to feminism.

12

4. REFERENCES

Almasy, R. Daniel, R. & Gerlach, J. (1996). Revisiting Shakespeare and Gender.

WILLA- Women in Literature and Life Assembly of The National Council of
Teachers of English, 5. Retrieved August 22, 2011 from Virginia Tech:
Digital Library and Archives
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/old- WILLA/fall96/gerlach.html.

Balmuth, M. (1988). Female Education in 16th & 17th Century England:

Influences, Attitudes, and Trends. Canadian Woman Studies, 9, 3&4, 19.
Retrieved August 25, 2011 from

http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/cws/article/viewFile/11719/10802.

Dark Lady (Character). (2010, October). Retrieved August 22, 2011 from
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia [on line]

http://En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Lady_(character).

Llim. (2007, April 20). Females in the 16th and 21st Century: Gender Perception
in Literature. Retrieved August 22, 2011from Serendip Web Site

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/392.

Haeberle, E.J. (1981). The Beginning of Feminism in Europe. The Sex Atlas.
Retrieved August 25, 2011 from
http://2.hu-berlin.de/sexology ATLAS_EN/html/the_beginnings_of_feminism_in_.html

13

Marowitz, C. (2009). The Marowitz Shakespeare: adaptations and collages of

Hamlet, Macbeth, The Taming of Shrew, Measure for measure, and The
Merchant of Venice. New York: London.

Middleton, T. & Rowley, W. (1990). The Changeling. In J. Daalder (Ed.),

Introduction. London: New Mermaids.

Middleton, T. & Rowley, W. (2006). The Changeling. In N. Michael (Ed.),

Introduction. London: New Mermaids.

14