First performed in 1728, The Beggar's Opera is exceptional for its focus on the lower classes. Playwright John Gay used this focus for a particular social and political reason: to criticize the lower and upper classes in order to elevate the middle. Disenchanted with the courts when the South Sea bubble burst in 1720 due to a combination of corruption and economics, Gay begins to distrust the actions and effects of the court class. His way of criticizing them is to equate the courts with the lower class, which he sees as having low morals. This opinion was most likely shaped by the real-life celebrity criminals of the time, Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard. In The Beggar's Opera, Gay criticizes the lower and upper classes through the ironic equivalence between criminals and the court. By criticizing the lower and upper classes in this way, Gay elevates the status of his audience, the middle class. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayGay immediately introduces the lower class into this play as the main characters. A beggar begins the play, in place of a gentleman or lady, by saying, "If poverty be a title for poetry, I am sure no one can dispute mine" (Gay 41). We are soon introduced to Peachum, who can be compared to the aforementioned real-life celebrity criminal Jonathan Wild, and his wife and daughter. For Peachum, the concept of honor is very different from what most of Gay's middle-class readers might hold. Peachum sees no sin in using the skills of criminals who work for him and then throwing them under the bus when he benefits, saying: “Lawyer is an honest job, as is mine. He too, like me, acts in a double capacity, both against the scoundrels and in their favor; for it is right that we protect and encourage deceivers, since we live according to them” (43). This not only comments on Peachum's relaxed morality towards honor, but also introduces the idea that the lower class is imitating the upper class, which we will see much later on. Peachum also seems to believe that the only honor to be found in someone lies in their usefulness. He tells his wife of his criminals: "I hate a lazy lipstick, from whom nothing can be obtained until he is hanged" (45). With this, of course, he considers human life nothing more than a means to an end. Peachum has a similar attitude towards her daughter, Polly Peachum, saying, "A girl who cannot allow some things, and refuse what is more material, will but make a poor hand of her beauty, and will soon be cast into the community." (54). ). Beauty, for him, is just a way to obtain something else. This statement also leads to an irony of what Peachum sees as “the common.” Instead of his own people being commoners, he intends them to be those who act in a more upper-class manner, which we'll get to later. This is one way the lower classes imitate the upper classes, mocking each other as “common.” Peachum is once again seen as a man of incredibly loose morals when he tells his wife, “No gentleman is ever thought the worse for killing a man in his own defense; and if business cannot be carried on without it, what would you have a gentleman do? This is intended to make a sort of caricature of the poorer class, saying that their morals are so inferior to those of the middle class that they are ridiculous. The way he represents these characters is essential to understanding what he wants to say about them to his audience, the middle class. Readers should laugh at the classesinferiors in this play, not with them. Obviously there is a feeling already present in the generation that the lower class imitates the upper class and that both are free in morals. This representation is used by Gay to criticize not only the lower class, but also the upper class. After all, in this comedy there is a very present idea that the lower classes imitate the upper one. We can see this when Mrs. Peachum says, "He loves to imitate fair ladies" (50) and "now the girl has played the fool and married, for verily she would do as the nobility" (55). This clearly draws a line between what the lower class does and the influence of the upper class. There is an ironic equivalence presented by the lower class characters between the criminals and the court. We can see this right away when an old woman next to Peachum sings, “Through all the busyness of life / Every neighbor abuses his brother; / Whore and scoundrel call husband and wife: / All professions are another scoundrel. / The priest calls the lawyer a swindler, / The lawyer is a scoundrel of the divine; / And the statesman, because he is so great, / believes his craft to be as honest as mine." This and the subsequent lines from Peachum that I wrote in the previous paragraph act as a way to equalize the upper and lower classes as far as it is about their morals. Upper class notions of what is civilized and honorable, such as marriage and statesmen, are degraded as “whores and scoundrels.” Peachum later says of Slippery Sam, “because the bad guy has impudence to want follow his trade as a tailor, which he calls honest work" (46). This is both an example of how the lower class believes in loose morals, and as an example of how the upper class is brought down a notch. As another example of equalization, Peachum says, "The man who proposes to earn money by gambling should have the education of a good gentleman, and be trained therein from his youth" and his wife replies, "What business has he got to do ?" hang out with gentlemen and gentlemen? He should let them prey on each other” (49). These lower class jokes that openly mock the upper class should not only break down the idea that the upper class is superior, but also allow middle class audiences to laugh at both classes right now. In these lines, the middle class has the upper hand, as they can be seen as knowing that both classes are morally corrupt compared to them. Gay shapes this feeling in them by using the poor who make fun of the rich. Gay uses the model of upper-class opera and mocks it by inserting ballads, a lower-class form of music. We see this when the beggar at the beginning of the play says: “I have introduced the similarities which are found in all your famous works... I have observed such a pleasant impartiality in our two ladies, that it is impossible for either of them to be offended. I hope I will be forgiven for not having made my work completely unnatural, like those in vogue” (41). This continues through the game as far as form and songs go. This once again confirms Gay's idea that the poor imitate the courts. This is just one of the ways he equates the upper class with the lower class through form. He also uses certain diction in his lower class character's sayings to represent the poor's imitation of the upper class. Peachum tells his wife, “Murder is the most fashionable crime a man can be guilty of” (48). Describing murder as fashionable here indicates that Gay is using upper class notions to describe morally corrupt and debauched actions. Gay uses this to accentuate the idea that upper class superiority is distant and.