Returning the social tradition in Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Beaumont's Knight of the Burning PestleSatirical dramatic works of early 17th-century England provide valuable information about the society that generated them through their comic and critical ideas. The recurring themes of these works enhance knowledge of the culture in which they first appeared. The rise of the lower and middle classes to social prestige and nobility appears among the most prevalent dramatic themes of the period. Capitalizing on the social confusion that followed, 17th-century playwrights expressed the uncertainty of whether to follow the dictum of fading traditions or purchase a higher place in society. To understand the nuances of how social change affected England, one need only take a look at Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, which illustrates the English aristocracy's struggle to survive while citizens of lesser birth rise triumphantly in its ranks. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside's sister drama, The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont, also depicts this situation in England despite its different plot and structure. Additionally, both plays feature similar resolutions that subtly contribute to the aura of social confusion. To emphasize the prevalence of upward mobility, Middleton's AChaste Maid in Cheapside and Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle feature women who triumph over sexually motivated male suitors by feigning death, an action that symbolically illustrates trembling social boundaries and the reduction of the environment. of paper ......h works. A discrete wave of many social shockwaves appears when women triumph over their insolent suitors by feigning death: a figurative upheaval of orthodox social values. Moreover, the unfulfilled eroticism of the suitors suggests the future deterioration of their belief that they must marry a woman for propagation and not for love. After the women escape this way of life by faking their death, the consequences of their resurrection demonstrate the inconstancy of the cultural certainties of their society. Works Cited Beaumont, Francis. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Ed. John Doebler. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967. Middleton, Thomas. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Ed. Alan Brissenden. New York: WW Norton & Company, Inc..., 1997.