Friday, April 10, 2009

Fickle Fate

As has been covered, "The Changeling" is full of instances in which the main characters, believing themselves to be blessed by fate, are in fact undone by it. Beatrice's chance meeting with Alsemero, De Flores' glimpse of their loving conversation, the remarkable ease with which Antonio's plan progresses, all of these seemingly positive occurrences ultimately cause their undoing. The "right place, right time" phenomena is soundly disproven by the main cast of the changeling, the initial boon rendered poisonous over time. But, if chance spells the doom of the protagonists, it does it by aiding the supporting cast, often by exposing the crimes of the former. Take this instance, when Jasperino informs Alsemero of Beatrice and De Flores' relationship: "Twas Diaphanta's chance...to leave me in a back part of the house...She was no sooner gone but instantly I heard your bride's voice in the next room to me and, lending more attention, found De Flores' louder than she (IV.ii. 90-97)." Chance is explicitly invoked (specifically "Diaphanta's chance") as the cause of Jasperino's startling discovery. Another example comes in the form of Tomazo's exasperated decision to leave to chance his search for his brother's killer. "I must think all men villains, and the next I meet, whoe'er he be, the murderer of my most worthy brother," he says, only to immediately run into De Flores, the true murderer, which fills De Flores with overwhelming guilt (V.ii. 6-10).
The constant presence of chance within the play, and its mutable benefit for a host of characters, lends a new meaning to the title. In a play so caught up with notions of disguise and treason, could it be that luck is the ultimate changeling? Middleton shows chance to be a force that can appear to you as pure benefit, give you all you desire, and then stab you in the back. Sometimes literally.

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