49 pages • 1 hour read
The Changeling
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Acts IV-VChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act IV, Scene 1 Summary
Act IV opens with a “dumb show”—a theatrical moment of mimed storytelling to further the plot. Alonzo is missing. Beatrice marries Alsemero with Vermandero’s blessing. De Flores watches, smiling, until Alonzo’s ghost appears before him. They all exit. The dumb show is complete.
After the wedding, Beatrice frets about her wedding night. She’s no longer a virgin, having slept with De Flores. She worries Alsemero will discover this, bringing her shame and dishonor. Beatrice finds Alsemero’s private closet and looks inside, finding vials and a manuscript of science experiments titled Secrets in Nature. The vials contain potions that, when consumed, reveal if a woman is pregnant or a virgin. The latter potion makes a virgin “incontinently gape, then fall / into a sudden sneezing, last into a violent laughing; / else dull, heavy, and lumpish” (4.1.48-50).
Diaphanta enters. Beatrice forms a plan for the virgin Diaphanta to slip into Beatrice’s bedroom that evening and switch places with Beatrice without Alsemero knowing. That way, Alsemero will think Beatrice is still a virgin when they consummate the marriage. Beatrice confirms Diaphanta is a virgin by giving her Alsemero’s potion. Diaphanta exhibits the noted effects. Beatrice also takes the potion, which has no impact on her.
Act IV, Scene 2 Summary
Vermandero discovers that two of his men, Antonio and Franciscus, suspiciously left the castle around the time Alonzo was murdered. Vermandero plans to arrest them for the murder.
Tomazo enters, wanting revenge for Alonzo’s murder. Tomazo speaks to De Flores, calling him “Honest De Flores” (4.2.37) and “kind and true one” (4.2.42), based on Alonzo’s high regard for De Flores. De Flores is struck by guilt and exits quickly. Alsemero enters. Tomazo suggests Alsemero is responsible for Alonzo’s murder and challenges him to a sword fight before leaving Alsemero to celebrate the wedding.
Alsemero’s friend Jasperino enters. While waiting for a romantic rendezvous with Diaphanta, Jasperino overhears Beatrice and De Flores speaking as lovers. When Diaphanta joins Jasperino, she confirms the meeting between Beatrice and De Flores. Jasperino shares this information with Alsemero, who begins to doubt Beatrice’s faithfulness. When Beatrice enters, Alsemero gives her the potion to test if she’s a virgin. Beatrice pretends to experience the effects, having witnessed them earlier with Diaphanta. Alsemero is relieved to see Beatrice pass the virginity test and embraces her.
Act IV, Scene 3 Summary
At the asylum, Isabella receives a letter from Franciscus declaring his love and revealing his true identity. Isabella shows the letter to Lollio, asking for his advice. Lollio and Isabella plan a scheme to trick the two men.
Lollio teaches Antonio choreography for the upcoming performance. Isabella enters, pretending to be mad and in love with Antonio. Antonio treats her with disgust. Isabella reveals who she is and admonishes Antonio for being a “quick-sighted lover” (4.3.141) who only cares about her appearance.
After Isabella exits, Lollio convinces Antonio and Franciscus to battle each other for Isabella’s affections. Alibius returns, and Lollio leads the madmen and fools through a performance rehearsal.
Act V, Scene 1 Summary
Diaphanta stays with Alsemero in Beatrice’s place for longer than planned, betraying Beatrice. De Flores enters. He offers to start a fire in Diaphanta’s room to force her to leave Alsemero, then to finish the plan by killing Diaphanta. Beatrice expresses love for De Flores and the way he cares for her needs. As De Flores leaves to start the fire, Alonzo’s ghost passes by and momentarily frightens them both.
Diaphanta enters, and Beatrice feigns gratitude for Diaphanta’s help. Beatrice sends Diaphanta back to her bedroom and promises her payment. Alsemero enters and finds Beatrice. Vermandero and Jasperino enter, too, all discussing the fire. De Flores passes through with a gun, claiming he’s planning to clean the chimney with it—although his real intention is to kill Diaphanta. The other men commend De Flores for his quick thinking. The gun goes off. De Flores returns, carrying Diaphanta’s body and claiming she died in the fire.
Act V, Scene 2 Summary
Tomazo’s rage and need for revenge consume him. He vows to attack the next man he sees. De Flores enters, and Tomazo strikes him. De Flores and Tomazo prepare to fight one another with swords, but De Flores feels too guilty to fight Tomazo. De Flores puts away his sword and leaves.
Vermandero enters with Alibius and Isabella. They have apprehended Franciscus and Antonio for Alonzo’s murder.
Act V, Scene 3 Summary
Alsemero and Jasperino witness a romantic exchange between Beatrice and De Flores in the garden. Alsemero confronts Beatrice and calls her a “whore” (5.3.31). Beatrice claims innocence. Alsemero continues the accusation and states Diaphanta as a witness to Beatrice’s adultery. Alsemero suggests this knowledge is why Diaphanta was killed. Beatrice confesses to employing De Flores to murder Alonzo so Beatrice and Alsemero could be together but otherwise claims innocence. Alsemero is not swayed by Beatrice’s romantic declarations. He locks her in his closet while he considers what to do.
De Flores enters. Alsemero confronts him, noting blood on De Flores’s clothes. Alsemero sends De Flores into the closet with Beatrice, taunting them for their adultery.
The rest of the cast enter. When Vermandero offers Antonio and Franciscus as suspects for Alonzo’s murder, Alsemero reveals that Beatrice and De Flores are the true murderers. They all hear sounds inside the closet as De Flores stabs Beatrice, then himself. De Flores and Beatrice exit the closet and join the group. Beatrice confesses to swapping places with Diaphanta on her wedding night, and De Flores confesses to sleeping with Beatrice. De Flores stabs himself again. He tells Beatrice to join him in death, then dies. Beatrice asks for forgiveness: “Forgive me, Alsemero, all forgive! / ’Tis time to die, when ’tis shame to live” (5.3.178-79). She then dies from her stab wound.
De Flores and Beatrice’s deaths satisfy Tomazo’s need for revenge. The remaining characters discuss the various transformations throughout the plot: Beatrice’s “beauty changed / To ugly whoredom” (5.3.197-98); De Flores’s “servant-obedience” gave way to “a master-sin” (5.3.198-99), Alsemero spent his wedding night with Diaphanta instead of Beatrice, and Antonio and Franciscus masqueraded as asylum patients and transformed from murder suspects to innocents. Alibius vows to be a better husband after it’s revealed that his jealous desire to keep Isabella hidden was to no avail. As the play ends, Alsemero offers to be a new brother to Tomazo and new child to Vermandero, to reconcile the tragic events.
Acts IV-V Analysis
Secrets and deceptions grow as the plot unravels toward its tragic end. Beatrice’s entanglement with De Flores taints her wedding-day joy, which forces her further down a path of corruption and lies to keep her secrets hidden. Beatrice is no longer as innocent as she once was after her “deflowering” by De Flores, but she must still act the part with Diaphanta and Alsemero. She presents herself as a “timorous virgin” (4.2.118) while scheming to fake her virginity, first by feigning the correct symptoms of the virginity test, then by swapping places with Diaphanta. This latter scheme is known as a “bed trick,” a common trope in which one sexual partner switches places with someone else without the other sexual partner knowing.
These schemes force Beatrice away from Alsemero and closer to De Flores. Lies, distrust, and fear—rather than romance—now dominate the scenes between Beatrice and Alsemero. The bed trick makes Beatrice “a stranger to [Alsemero’s] bed” (5.3.159), solidifying her separation from Alsemero. Meanwhile, Beatrice and De Flores are intimately bound through their crimes and have no secrets between them. The moment De Flores finds Beatrice waiting for Diaphanta to leave Alsemero highlights the dark intimacy between De Flores and Beatrice: De Flores knows about the bed trick and dotes on Beatrice as she frets over Diaphanta’s betrayal. De Flores kills Diaphanta to protect Beatrice’s honor, further entangling them in murderous secrets. Beatrice realizes how attentively De Flores takes care of her and murders for her, and decides she loves him. Murder and deception become as entrenching as their sexual union, binding De Flores and Beatrice together. Their fates become permanently tied when Beatrice dies by De Flores’s hand in the final act, superseding Beatrice and Alsemero’s church-sanctioned marriage vows. Religious imagery emphasizes this subversion of honor. While the play begins virtuously near a church, by the play’s conclusion, “we are left in hell” (5.3.163). The religious allusions, including De Flores’s comparison to a corrupting “serpent” (5.3.66), parallel Beatrice’s moral fall to the biblical fall of man.
Various plot devices heighten this suspenseful unraveling. Middleton and Rowley play on the trope of “revenge tragedy” through Tomazo’s character. Revenge tragedies—plays where a character’s need for revenge only leads to death and tragedy—were popular at the time. Middleton and Rowley subvert the revenge plot to add suspense and dark comedy: Tomazo blames everyone except De Flores, the true murderer, and when Tomazo has an opportunity to kill De Flores, De Flores ironically walks away. Alonzo’s ghost also makes an appearance, haunting Beatrice and De Flores, and reminding them of the weight of their crimes. It is only a matter of time before their crimes are discovered and Tomazo extracts his revenge. While Tomazo plays no part in bringing De Flores and Beatrice down, their deaths satisfy his need for revenge.
Comedy is also found as the subplot combines with the main plot in the final acts. The subplot mirrors the main plot as Isabella negotiates opportunities for adultery yet remains faithful to her husband. The subplot characters enjoy a happy ending: Antonio and Franciscus are acquitted for Alonzo’s murder, and Alibius vows to be a better husband to Isabella. Meanwhile, Beatrice’s adultery and crimes plunge the main characters into tragedy. Although the subplot characters arrive from Alibius’s mental asylum, true madness is found among the lovesick inhabitants of Vermandero’s castle.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By these authors
