The Meaning of Title in "The Beggar's Opera"

        John Gay’s masterpiece “The Beggar’s Opera” is one of the greatest opera that the theme includes social, politic, sexual antithesis, and the dark sight of human nature. Gay uses accurate words to every character’s personality, and so does the topic, “the beggar’s” opera.

        Opera is the entertainment of high class people, but Gay uses the “beggar” to be the topic that expresses his satire to the people from gentility. Polly, the innocent but accounts love to Macheath to her life. Lucy has bad temper but really love the highway man. Macheath is a boulevardier but he has the sense of honor to his attendants. Those roles are not the typical people from high society, and I’m sure that Gay despises the high class in his contemporary. So he uses the topic of the people from lower class, the beggar, to his drama to satirize the pompous beau monde. The contrariety of social class is abound with problems, like people in diverse class can’t not easily to get married, many parents use their daughter to obtain property, just like Mr. Peachum tries to convince Polly to kill Macheath in order to get his money.

        Drama reflects human life, and John Gay plays the double meaning in the topic of his masterwork: first, the beggar shows up in the drama certainly, second the “beggar” satirizes the people in extravagant high class.