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In this thesis, I examine three critical views of The
Changeling, the seventeenth-century Jacobean drama written by
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley; Sharon Stockton, Deborah G.
Burks, and Marjorie Garber. Using Kristeva and Derrida,
Stockton suggests that Beatrice-Joanna functions as a scapegoat
and a transgressive force to help Alsemero succeed in the
patrilineal succession and strengthen the patriarchal order.
According to Stockton, Beatrice-Joanna subverts patriarchy by
entering Alsemero's study by accident and without right and by
faking the symptoms of gaping, sneezing, and laughing in
Alsemero's virginity test. By contrast, Burks thinks that
Beatrice-Joanna does not subvert the patriarchal code; rather,
the patriarchy wins in the end by situating women's virginity as
the sentry to preserve the male social order. On the other
hand, Garber suggests that the power belongs to the boy actor
playing Beatrice-Joanna who owns the power to fake the symptoms
of virginity. So for Garber, the question is neither whether
the patriarchy wins nor whether Beatrice-Joanna subverts
patriarchy but the meaning of the playfulness of the boy actor
playing Beatrice-Joanna in a representation within a
representation in the Jacobean theatre. As I show, the
Jacobean stage is self-referential, in that it continuously
refers to its own theatricality. This theatricality raises new
questions about the intense gender conflicts on the Jacobean
stage, since the audience knew that female characters were being
played by boy actors. How does the knowledge of Jacobean stage
alter our view of Jacobean drama? I suggest that we can examine
The Changeling as a changeable text producing a non-fixed sign
system in the performance. This changeable sign system is very
important in understanding the representation of power
relationships in the Jacobean drama, images of violence, and the
representation of "fallen" or "sinful" women-- especially
because female characters were acted by boy actors. Such
performances generate the question about the "truth" hidden
behind the player who represents a "fallen" woman, as Beatrice-
Joanna.
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