Breaking The Wall

The Beggar's Opera ends with a direct message from the playwright to the audience, essentially breaking the fourth wall. The comical message to the audience is simply that, although logically and morally this play should have a sad ending, because of the rules of opera, it must end happily. Thus the consequences of the characters' actions are rendered moot and all is resolved well. This is notable for several reasons.

1. It breaks the fourth wall, which is incredibly unconventional and forward-thinking.

2. It is yet another bizarre twist on story and style. The Beggar's Opera is already notable for flipping expectations on their heads by casting beggars and thieves as protagonists in an opera, but here we literally have the minds behind the play addressing the fact that they are inverting expectation—thereby letting the audience in on the joke.

3. Realistically, in this case, the audience would be the joke themselves. Since the primary characters of the play are stand-ins for upper-class citizens rather than lower-class, Macheath's exoneration only further reinforces the idea that the rich get off scott-free while the lower class does not. In this manner, John Gay is shoving the upper class's hypocrisy in their own faces while simultaneously getting them to laugh at it.