Lucy so quickly sides with Macheath again, she is way too easily convinced. This continues throughout the latter half of the play, with both Lucy and Polly denouncing Macheath and then just a few lines later being enthralled with him and wanting to die alongside him? Very, very flimsy characterisation.

Beauty as commercial value, wielding femininity as a means of gaining material goods. Women depicted as conniving, calculating.

Tension between the Beggar's artistic vision and poeticism and the later "Taste of the Town." Sort of self-aware tension between so-called High Art and Low Art, and the impact of public tastes on art.

Breaking the fourth wall, here?

Though Macheath critiques the honour of the courtiers, we have seen throughout the play that men of all standings and backgrounds will use friendships or romantic relationships to their advantage and financial gain (e.g. Macheath using Polly and Lucy, Mr. Peachum using Polly, etc.)

Though Macheath is the one physically in prison, Polly, as a woman, is also trapped: socially and financially.

She desires the security that an actual marriage brings women in this contemporary society; despite the Peachums claims that marriage ruins women, in fact the societal standard is that a woman is only considered legitimate once she is married.

The issue, here, is not that Macheath is cheating on Lucy (as she does not mention any of the other women he was messing around with, and Macheath does not deny that he visited and kissed Polly) but rather that Macheath has supposedly married Polly as well, thus bringing public shame and embarrassment to Lucy.

Prisons as for-profit, justice as something that is experienced differently depending on one's class and circumstances. Both themes that are, unfortunately, still all too relevant today.

Reference to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Referencing already established popular works as a means of establishing artistic value, as well as situating oneself within the culture and the canon. Brown utilises similar tactics in his evocations of famous artworks in The Davinci Code, and Gay also uses similar strategies in referencing pre-existing Marvel characters to situate the story of Ayo and Aneka.

Very different use of language, here, than what he used in his previous scene with Polly. Similar to the language used by Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, and thus linguistically aligns himself with these characters--he, too, does not have Polly's best interests at heart.

"Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs," (Romeo and Juliet I.I.197)

Again, echoes of R+J and doomed love.

Echoes of Romeo and Juliet here, or other stories of star-crossed lovers.

The old stereotype of lawyers as preying upon less fortunate people, as evil characters. In many ways, the characters within this play are stock characters, which seems to be common in popular literature as it helps build within a tradition and render things familiar and comforting.

Peachum as the voice of reason and decency, here, whereas Mrs. Peachum is portrayed as shrill and shrieking, emotional. Stereotypical depictions of reactions of women vs. men to revelations/drama.

Not long after a long discussion about murder, we get discussions of love and sex. Sex, of course, sells. So far, we've engaged with two popular genres in this work in a short span. Titillating subject matter for the audience.

A sort of self-aware acknowledgment that murder sells, here, that there's something sexy about it. In many ways, this opera functions as a crime tale--John Grisham is shaking in his boots!

References to the original sin, here, as well as associations of the feminine with art and beauty.

It is interesting that the opening of the play begins with an acknowledgment of the tension between financial gain and artistic endeavours, as well as the cariacture of the "starving artist." (Also, as someone taking a poetry workshop this semester as well, I feel I am far too often reminded of how non-lucrative poetry is as a field LOL Professor Winger loves to remind us of the fact.)

This statement is interesting, as it perhaps highlights why the theatre was able to produce works considered highly popular, in terms of the definitions we work with within this course. I think it also highlight the fact that popular literature is, by definition, foregrounded by the collective experience; it is popular because it is enjoyed en masse and enters the public consciousness through this. Often when a text becomes popular enough, it too becomes difficult to decide who "gives more than another to it," as it becomes a text that's meaning is created through the interaction of the audience and the culture.

Again, dichotomy between the masculine reason and the feminine passion that would become increasingly divided during the Enlightenment.