The Alchemist (Jonson) دراسة تحليلية لمسرحية الكيميائي

Short Summary : ملخص قصير عن أحداث المسرحية
Lovewit has left for his hop-yards in London, and he has left Jeremy, his butler, in charge of his house in Blackfriars. Jeremy, whose name in the play is Face, lives in the house with Subtle, a supposed alchemist, and Dol Common, a prostitute. The three run a major con operation.

The play opens with an argument that continues throughout the play between Subtle and Face. It concerns which of them is the most essential to the business of the con, each claiming his own supremacy. Dol quells this argument and forces the conmen to shake hands. The bell rings, and Dapper, a legal clerk, enters, the first gull of the day. Face takes on the role of “Captain Face”, and Subtle plays the “Doctor.”

Dapper wants a spirit that will allow him to win at gambling. Subtle promises one and then tells him he is related to the Queen of the Fairies. Dispatched to get a clean shirt and wash himself, Dapper leaves, immediately replaced by Drugger, a young tobacconist who wants to know how he should arrange his shop. Subtle tells him, and Face gets him to return later with tobacco and a damask. Their argument looks set to resume when Dol returns to warn them that Sir Epicure Mammon is approaching.

Sir Epicure Mammon and his cynical sidekick, Sir Pertinax Surly, are next through the door. Mammon is terrifically excited because Subtle has promised to make him the Philosopher’s Stone, about which Mammon is already fantasizing. Face changes character into “Lungs” or “Ulen Spiegel,” the Doctor’s laboratory assistant, and the two conmen impress Mammon and irritate Surly with a whirl of scientific language. Face arranges for “Captain Face” to meet Surly in half an hour at the Temple Church, and a sudden entrance from Dol provokes Mammon, instantly besotted, into begging Face for a meeting with her.

Ananias, an Anabaptist, enters and is greeted with fury by Subtle. Ananias then returns with his pastor, Tribulation. The Anabaptists want the Philosopher’s Stone in order to make money in order to win more people to their religion. Subtle, adopting a slightly different persona, plays along. Kastrill is the next new gull, brought by Drugger, who has come to learn how to quarrel—and to case the joint to see if it is fit for his rich, widowed sister, Dame Pliant. Face immediately impresses young Kastrill, and he exits with Drugger to fetch his sister.

Dapper, in the meantime, is treated to a fairy rite in which Subtle and Face (accompanied by Dol on cithern) steal most of his possessions. When Mammon arrives at the door, they gag him and bundle him into the privy. Mammon and Dol (pretending to be a “great lady”) have a conversation which ends with them being bundled together into the garden or upstairs—Face is pretending that Subtle cannot know about Mammon’s attraction to Dol.
The widow is brought into the play, as is a Spanish Don who Face met when Surly did not turn up. This Spaniard is in fact Surly in disguise, and the two conmen flicker between arguing about who will marry the widow and mocking the Spaniard by speaking loudly in English of how they will “cozen” or deceive him. Because Dol is occupied with Mammon, the conmen agree to have the Spaniard marry the widow, and the widow is carried out by Surly.

In the meantime, Dol has gone into a fit of talking, being caught with a panicked Mammon by a furious “Father” Subtle. Because there has been lust in the house, a huge explosion happens offstage, which Face comes in to report has destroyed the furnace and all the alchemical apparatus. Mammon is quickly packed out the door, completely destroyed by the loss his entire investment.

Things start to spiral out of control, and the gulls turn up without warning. At one point, nearly all the gulls, including an unmasked Surly, are in the room, and Face only just manages to improvise his way out of it. Dol then reports that Lovewit has arrived, and suddenly Face has to make a final change into “Jeremy the Butler.”
Lovewit is mobbed by the neighbors and the gulls at the door, and Face admits to Lovewit, when forced to do so by Dapper’s voice emerging from the privy, that all is not as it seems—and has him marry the widow. After Dapper’s quick dispatch, Face undercuts Dol and Subtle and, as the gulls return with officers and a search warrant, Dol and Subtle are forced to escape, penniless, over the back wall. The gulls storm the house, find nothing themselves, and are forced to leave empty-handed. Lovewit leaves with Kastrill and his new wife, Dame Pliant. Face is left alone on stage with a financial reward, delivering the epilogue.

Character List : شخصيات المسرحية
Subtle
The "Alchemist" of the play's title. We never learn whether "Subtle" is a forename or a surname (or the only name). Meaning "crafty" or "clever" in Elizabethan English, it is an appropriate choice. Subtle is grumpy, constantly at odds with Face (he is often played as considerably older), and is very learned, being the one with alchemical expertise. He disguises himself as "the Doctor" to carry out his con.

Face
Face seems, to some extent, faceless; we get very little idea of a personality or an impetus behind his character. He is constantly switching roles. Some commentators think that his real name is "Jeremy," but this idea--particularly because it is not supported by Jonson's dramatis personae--could just be one more in a series of disguises Face undertakes. He plays "Ulen Spiegel" or "Lungs" for the Mammon-con, and more usually he is the wiseboy "Captain Face" for everyone else. He is essential in finding the gulls in the pubs of London and bringing them to the Blackfriars house.

Dol
Also "Dol Common," Dol is short for Dorothy, and her second name, "Common," is in itself a pun, meaning "everyone's"--because Dol is a prostitute. The play implies she is in casual sexual relationships with both Face and Subtle. Her role is not as important as Face's or Subtle's, yet her one transformation, into a "royal lady," is essential in maneuvering Mammon into the right place at the right time. She escapes with Subtle "over the back wall" at the end--without a share of the goods.

Dapper
A legal clerk and a social climber who comes to the conmen in order to get a "gambling fly" (a spirit who will allow him to cheat and win at gambling). Dapper has met Face in a pub and has been tempted to the house. Extremely greedy and extremely gullible, Subtle tells him he is a relative of the Faery-Queen. Upon his return, he is locked in the privy for most of the play.

Abel ("Nab") Drugger
An honest, good soul, he is a young tobacconist who has just bought a new shop on the corner of a street. He wants the Doctor (having met Face in a pub) to advise him on (effectively) the feng shui of the building. He is tricked into handing over a lot of expensive tobacco and into bringing Kastrill and Dame Pliant (Drugger's shyly admitted crush) into the Blackfriars house. At the end of the play, he loses everything and is dispatched with a punch from Lovewit.

Lovewit
The master of the house and the employer of "Jeremy the Butler," his housekeeper (alias Face). Away for the majority of the play, Lovewit doesn't return until Act 5--unexpectedly, though Face lies and claims to have sent for him. At this point he punishes Face, but without uncovering the plot itself, or caring to. He marries Dame Pliant and leaves the stage halfway through the epilogue in order to smoke tobacco.

Sir Epicure Mammon
Epicure Mammon's name means a person who is devoted to sensory enjoyment and material wealth, and he is perhaps the play's biggest con. He is also the greediest gull of the lot. Constantly comparing himself and the alchemist's work with classical or antique riches, he is obsessed with food, sex, and the idea of getting his riches turned into gold by the Philosopher's Stone. His lust is the reason given by the conmen for the explosion that destroys the (non-existent) furnace and vanquishes his hopes of getting rich.

Sir Pertinax Surly
The sidekick of Epicure Mammon, he spends the first part of his time in the play bitterly mocking and criticizing Mammon but also calling into question the actions of the conmen. Surly then decides to try to catch them out, and--in his successful disguise as a Spaniard--he falls in love with Dame Pliant. In the end he is attacked by Kastrill and loses the girl.

Tribulation Wholesome, a Pastor of Amsterdam
The leader of the local group of Anabaptists (see "About Anabaptists" in this ClassicNote), Tribulation is rather more measured and logical than Ananias, but, as the representative of his group, he is hungry for money, membership, and power.

Ananias, a Deacon of Amsterdam
Ananias is an Anabaptist (see "About Anabaptists") and is greedy for power, land, and membership for his order. He is also incredibly angry and quick to condemn anything that may not be, as he sees it, Christian, and on numerous occasions he blurts out furiously that, for example, "Christ-tide" is the right, Christian name for Christmas. Ananias is also the name of a New Testament character who is stricken dead because of his greed.

Kastrill
An "Angry Boy," he wants to learn the skill of quarrelling: formal, rhetorical argument. He has come to Subtle to learn it. Clearly young and impressionable, he is very protective over his sister, Dame Pliant, and he goes to huge lengths to seem "one of the guys" in several of the group scenes. His "quarrelling" is rather unimpressive. Comically, he seems to know only a handful of (immature) insults, including "you lie" and "you are a pimp."

Dame Pliant
Often called "Widow" in the play, she is the recently-widowed sister of Kastrill. Dame Pliant's name means bendy, supple, or flexible; true to her name, she seems one of the stupidest characters in literature. When she does speak, very rarely, she has the same speech mannerisms (e.g., "suster") as her brother. Subtle steals several kisses from her (4.2) while she seems not to notice, and the two conmen fight over which of them will wed her (and inherit the considerable fortune she has inherited from her husband). In the end, it is Lovewit who gets the girl with no wits.

Neighbors
Several neighbors appear in the street upon Lovewit's return in 5.1, and they describe to Lovewit what they have seen happen while he has been away at his hop-yards. They have a tiny role to play within the play itself, though on a couple of occasions, Dol is seen shooing women away from the door. Their descriptions of "oyster-women" and "Sailor's wives" (5.1.3-4) give us the sense that the conmen have performed several more cons than the play showcases.

Summary and Analysis of Act I, Scene I

The scene, as in almost every following scene, is Lovewit’s house. The play opens with a blazing argument between Subtle and Face, which Dol Common is trying desperately to calm. The reason for the argument is not entirely clear, but the basic point is that both Subtle and Face feel the superior conman and the most important in the success of their “business”; neither feels duly appreciated by the other. Subtle claims that he is responsible for Face being in the position he is in—only a short time ago, he tells him, he was only the “good / Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum” (a servant whose clothing is very cheaply made) who worked in his master’s house. Subtle claims that he has taught Face everything he knows, and that Face should therefore be grateful—without Subtle, he still would have been a mere housekeeper.

Face claims, conversely, that Subtle’s status as the titular “Alchemist” is dependent on Face’s bringing in the gulls to be gulled. Furthermore, Face claims that he got Subtle sufficient credit to buy the paraphernalia of alchemy, and that Face built him the furnace. Subtle retaliates by restating that it is only through his own alchemical expertise that Face has learned how to be a conman. Each believes that the other would be nothing without him.
Face threatens to publish the details of Subtle’s trickeries at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he claims that they are so manifold that it would be plausible for him to write a book. His final threat is that he will have Subtle arrested under the “statute of sorcery.”
Dol eventually breaks up the argument, bringing the two down to earth by reminding Face that his word will not be taken by anyone, and likewise taking Subtle down a peg or two. She forces him to acknowledge that she and Face both play their parts in the cons; the venture is “tripartite.” She then forces the two conmen to swear that they will “labor, kindly, in the common work” which they do, rather unwillingly. They then praise Dol as “Dol Singular” (meaning that she is the best of all), only to be interrupted by the bell ringing.
Subtle worries initially that it will be the master, Lovewit, at the door, but Face gives us the key information that he will not return until the plague has left London. He will send an order to “air” the house before his return—the conmen should have, according to Face, a safe two weeks.
Dol looks out of the window to see who has rung the bell, and it is Dapper, a “fine young quodling” whom Face met in the Dagger Inn in Holborn last night. There is a hurried costume change as Subtle gets “his robes” on, and Face finishes the scene by beginning the con, shouting (so that Dapper hears) to Subtle as if he is about to leave the house, as Dapper has not yet appeared.

Analysis

Jonson’s play observes, or at least nearly observes, Aristotle’s classical unities. The play takes place, except for the one scene outside the house, in the same room in Lovewit’s house. It happens, or can be staged so as to happen, in chronological order, and its events take place over one day. The events of the play take about as long as the play takes in performance. And all attention remains on the story of the conmen and their cons.
The play’s opening immediately plunges the audience into an argument which has no prequel. We do not know its characters, its origins, or its location–until the scene reveals them. There is no time for the audience to question the believability of what is going on; they immediately have to start to working out what is going on. This is one of the things that has led to Jonson’s reputation as a particularly difficult writer, a reputation not due solely to the age of the play. Jonson in this early part of the play purposely makes things difficult.
The meta-theatricality of the play is also immediately evident. The argument at the start of the play is all about which character–the one playing “Alchemist” or the one playing “Captain”–is the most convincing and important, an appropriate argument for the beginning of a stage play, particularly when one realizes that Subtle and Face are not an Alchemist and a Captain but a pair of conmen. The conmen seem almost too convinced by their own performances. Face has to be reminded that he, in fact, has no credibility as a mangy captain to turn the world against Subtle, and Subtle seems oddly convinced about his own extensive knowledge of alchemy.
Does Subtle actually know any alchemy? He certainly, as we see later, knows some alchemical theory, which he will use to confound Mammon. The play never answers the question of how much Subtle knows about alchemy. Nor does Jonson ever show us the “furnace” which Face claims to have built in this scene. Even if it might exist, for the audience it does not. Like the gulls, we are encouraged to buy into “nothing”–we might choose to believe that the furnace is indeed in the next room, but really it is just the backstage.
Dapper’s appearance at the door and the ring of the bell are the first of many moments when Jonson drives the plot forward with interruptions. The doorbell is a fantastically useful way of instantly introducing a new complication. In just a few lines, Subtle and Face must undergo costume changes to prepare for the first con. After the explosive opening argument about believability, the character changes enact literally what the argument itself has just achieved theatrically: convincing an audience.

Summary and Analysis of Act 1, Scene 2

Dapper meets Face, now “Captain Face,” just as, he pretends, he is leaving the house. Dapper apologizes for his lateness (he clearly arranged to meet Face at the house when they met at the Dagger Inn the night before), saying that he lent his watch to a friend of the sheriff’s.

Subtle enters, dressed in a doctor’s robes, and Dapper is amazed to see the “cunning man.” Dapper asks how he has responded to the “matter” in question, but Face implies that Subtle is not keen to proceed, and that Face himself would be keen to have it off his hands. Clearly Dapper wants something performed that would be illegal under the statute of sorcery, and Face is exploiting the precarious legal position to the full to make him uncomfortable.
Dapper promises that he will keep his mouth shut, and Face agrees to approach the Doctor about the case again. The “Doctor,” silent at the other side of the room, tells Face that he would do much for his love, “but this / I neither may nor can.” Face pleads that Dapper is no ordinary guy and certainly is no ordinary cheat, but the Doctor remains unmoved. Face instructs Dapper to offer the Doctor money, and then–when he will not accept–makes as if to storm out. Suddenly the Doctor calls him back in, accepting Dapper’s money, and he pulls Face to one side.
Their conversation is clearly heard by Dapper, who, it transpires, has come to the Alchemist to get a “gambling fly” or “spirit” which will allow him to win at betting. Why, the Doctor asks Face, does he want to help Dapper when, if the Doctor grants his request, Dapper will undo everyone by winning all the money in the town? After clarifying that this is indeed what Dapper wants to do, the two go back into another (perfectly audible) private conference. The Doctor reveals that Dapper is “of the only best complexion / The Queen of Fairy loves” which means that, as one favored by the Queen of the Fairies, he is liable to make even more money.
Suddenly Dapper, who has been listening throughout, is drawn back into the conversation and forced to admit that he has overheard. Dapper promises to send the Captain and the Doctor half of the ten thousand pounds he will win, and the Doctor agrees to give him the familiar spirit and introduce him to his aunt, the Queen of Fairies.
There is a knock on the door outside, and Face bundles Dapper out the back way, arranging with him to put vinegar in his nose, mouth, and ears, bathe his fingers’ ends, wash his eyes, cry hum and buz, and return at one o’clock to meet the Queen.

Analysis
This first “gulling” scene shows us the meta-theater of the play in action. Subtle’s and Face’s relationship and characters change as Face pretends to leave a message for Subtle to give to Dapper: the pretence of the “con” is not discussed by the characters, but they know how to implement it in a split second. Face becomes the jovial “Captain Face” (referring, perhaps, to an imagined military past), and Subtle becomes “the Doctor,” who has the power to produce a “fly,” a personal familiar spirit, which will attend Dapper and aid his gambling.
It is interesting that the argument that opens the play itself also opens the con. Dapper is immediately made vulnerable by the way the conmen instantly place him at the center of an argument. His being late, having temporarily given up his watch, is a straightforward symbol of his gullibility. The “Captain” urges the Doctor to help with Dapper’s request, and the “Doctor” refuses. It is Dapper who makes the peace when, at one stage, the “Captain” seems to be storming out in a rage.
When the two conmen whisper to each other, perfectly aware that Dapper is overhearing their words, it is Dapper again who is called into question. He is accused of lying, of eavesdropping, and of wanting more than he claims to want. By questioning his believability, they ensure that he is never able to question theirs.
This episode might be seen as what in modern parlance is called “confidence trickery.” Dapper comes into the scene cocky and confident, but he is immediately undermined and thrown off guard, further able to be gulled.

Summary and Analysis of Act 1, Scenes 3 and 4

After Face’s exit, Subtle welcomes Abel Drugger (sometimes called “Nab”), a tobacconist who, like Dapper, was sent by “one Captain Face.” Face has apparently told Dapper (according to his initial, stumbling monologue) that the Doctor “knows men’s planets.” In short, Dapper wants astrological advice about the feng shui of the new tobacconist’s shop he is about to open: where to place his boxes, where his pots, where the door and windows should be, and so on.

Face enters, fresh from escorting Dapper outside. He greets Drugger warmly, for he provides Face, apparently, with the best, highest-quality tobacco. Immediately the “Doctor” decides that Abel is a “fortunate fellow” and predicts that he will soon come into great riches and will be made a sheriff. Subtle then, according to the “metoposcopy” he claims to work by, reads Drugger’s skin color, forehead, ear, teeth, and nails in order to ascertain that he was born on a Wednesday.
Subtle then performs a rapid feng shui treatment on the plan of Drugger’s shop, positioning the doors and providing the names of spirits who can “fright flies from boxes.” He then predicts that Drugger will deal “much with minerals” and may even have a chance at acquiring the Philosopher’s Stone. Drugger, like Dapper before him, is coerced into leaving money for the Doctor for his services, though not before he has produced his almanac so that the Doctor can cross out his unlucky days. The Doctor promises to have it done by afternoon, and Drugger excitedly leaves.
After he has left, the conmen come out of character for the first time since Act 1, Scene 1. Face makes a short speech, provocatively pointing out to Subtle that the two gulls who have just come through the doors were arranged and brought in by him alone.
As the argument looks set to rekindle itself, Dol enters, and the two immediately attempt to look nonchalant. Dol has been sending the “fish-wives” away from the door (presumably they are gulled characters who are constantly present near the door, but never seen by the audience). Dol has seen Sir Epicure Mammon heading this way. Subtle gleefully describes having waited for him since sunrise. Mammon, he tells us, is so convinced that he will have the Philosopher’s Stone that he is already behaving as if he does have it and the wealth it would produce.

Analysis
What Drugger’s entrance immediately makes clear to the audience is the facility Subtle and Face have for suiting their cons to the persons they want to con. Nervous, hesitant Drugger is comically sympathetic as he is greeted firmly and definitely by the Doctor and Captain Face, both of whom seem twice as confident and have far higher status than he does.
The conmen’s method, though it is not entirely clear from the scene, is a combination of straightforward lying—the “certain star” in Drugger’s forehead, which only Subtle can see, is an omen of his wealth, good guesswork—that Drugger is born on a Wednesday, and stating the obvious—Subtle’s list of the chemicals Drugger possesses is a list of the standard chemicals any mineral-dealer would have. Thus they convince him that they have unearthly powers. From now on in the play, Drugger will do exactly as he is told.
There is an interesting turn already due to the treatment of the gulls. Drugger only wishes “to thrive,” and his innocent naivete makes him instantly sympathetic. Jonson’s view of the conmen is always ambiguous, but the introduction of Drugger certainly suggests that the audience might become aware of the cruelty and brutality of the cons. Conning, after all, is theft more than comedy, and we start to feel more sympathy for the gulls than for the protagonists.
Jonson carefully keeps the relationship between the conmen spiky. As the scene ends, it seems that they are about to get into another argument, but Dol’s entrance stops it. Face claims, again, that his part in the business is essential to its success—without him, Subtle would have nobody to con with his “crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites [flasks].” Jonson keeps the audience aware of the fact that the plot of The Alchemist is not just a string of successful cons. There remains a constant question or disagreement about who is the better or more prominent partner. For them, it means who deserves what share of the profits; for us, it means assessing the quality of the performances.
Act 1, Scene 4 serves one main purpose: to build up expectation for the entrance of Epicure Mammon. If Dapper introduces the idea of conning and Drugger makes the gulls seem humanized and sympathetic, Epicure Mammon will bring a new level of interest to the play. He is at once more colorful, more outrageous, and more greedy than any of the other gulls. Fittingly, his final humiliation will be all the greater.

Summary and Analysis of Act 2, Scenes 1, 2, and 3

Sir Epicure Mammon begins Act 2, Scene 1, with a lengthy speech. In heightened poetic language, he compares the Blackfriars house to “the rich Peru,” “the golden mines,” and “Great Solomon’s Ophir.” Surly from the start is lagging behind (he is, naturally, surly) and calls into question Mammon’s assumptions that he will end up rich. Mammon is in this excited state because today is the day the Philosopher’s Stone is due to be ready. Surly warns him only to believe in things when he sees them with his own eyes. When Mammon talks about the effects of the “great med’cine,” Surly says he will believe it, but only “when I see’t.”

Mammon has extravagant plans to cure all diseases, become immortal, and have sex with several different wives at once (he will, he says, encounter “twenty a night”). He also possesses, he says to Surly, several relics already: “dragon’s teeth” and “a piece of Jason’s fleece. They are very unlikely genuine, but Mammon of course believes they are.
Face enters, dressed as Lungs, the bellows-man (who blows air into the furnace), and he tells Mammon that the stone has gone “red,” a very good sign that it is nearly fully alchemized. Mammon promises him extensive riches if the stone does indeed form correctly. This is plainly ironic because Face is already making money from the very idea of the stone. Mammon indulges in further lengthy descriptions of his future lifestyle when he is very rich—the rich clothes he will wear, the fine foods he will eat, and the status he will be afforded in the world.
Subtle enters as the “Alchemist” and is treated very respectfully by Mammon, who addresses him as “Father.” According to Mammon, Surly has been brought along “in hope … to convert him” to believing in the Alchemist. Immediately Subtle worries Mammon by suggesting that he might be covetous (see “A note on alchemy” in this ClassicNote) and that the stone may therefore not form. Face and Subtle then baffle Mammon with a torrent of dense, scientific language which neither Mammon nor Surly understands. (The speakers probably do not understand it, either.)
Face exits to “change the filter” and bring Subtle the “complexion of glass B,” two imaginary adjustments to what might well be an imaginary furnace. Face returns with the bad news that glass B is black, which unsurprisingly needs a financial investment of ten pounds from Mammon to buy “some three ounces of fresh materials,” which will provide a better chance of developing the stone. Mammon, excited by this, decides to bring all of the metal from his house to the Blackfriars so that it is ready to be converted into gold.
Subtle expounds the theory of alchemy at length, explaining to the cynical Surly that objects are always in flux and that, in the way that an egg can become a chicken, base metal is waiting to be transformed into gold. The speech is a tour de force, though Surly is not convinced, and he calls alchemy “a pretty kind of game … to cheat a man.” Surly points out that all Subtle’s “terms” (his scientific language) are only words that mean nothing to the layman; besides, there is no evidence of anything that the alchemy has achieved—just a storm of words. Subtle is slightly perplexed by this accurate argument, and he tells Surly that “all the knowledge / of the Egyptians” was “writ in mystic symbols,” and the “Scriptures” likewise speak “oft in parables.”
Suddenly Dol enters, and Mammon is immediately besotted. Subtle sends Face in to see what is going on, and when Face returns, Mammon questions him in the absence of Subtle. Dol is pretending to be, as Face reveals to Mammon, a “rare scholar” who has “gone mad” studying a scholar called Broughton, and who has come to the Doctor to be cured. Surly is not convinced, feeling sure that this is “a bawdy house.” Mammon is desperate to meet this scholar, and Face promises to set up a meeting. Surly remains cynical, and Face persuades Surly to meet “Captain Face” at the Temple Church in half an hour.
The scene ends with a touching moment when Mammon reveals his own total lack of self-worth. “Wilt thou … be constant to thy promise?” he asks Face, “And wilt thou … praise me? / And say I am a noble fellow?” When Face agrees, Mammon is so excited and moved by the prospect of being praised that he exclaims, “Lungs, my Lungs! I love thee!” and, handing over still more money to Face, exits.

Analysis
Mammon is the play’s most imaginative character and the best example of someone who is prepared, in Surly’s words, practically to gull himself. His comparisons of the Blackfriars house and its business to all manner of classical, worldly, and literary wonders exemplifies the way he is prepared to be optimistic almost to the point of absurdity. Mammon, when propelled by his considerable greed, seems unable to live in the real world. He lives more in the dream-land of “what it will be like when I am rich.”
Moreover, we never see any real alchemy, and the “furnace” that Lovewit describes is offstage. The alchemical language that Face and Subtle talk to baffle Mammon in this scene seems to be genuinely accurate according to 17th-century ideas about alchemy. But as Anne Barton points out, it is “real” only in “words”: again, the glasses, furnaces, and bubbling liquids that the pair describe are situated offstage.
As in so much theatre, particularly Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, we are asked to believe in things that we never see. In this case, we are also invited not to believe; perhaps the furnace does not exist or, at least, exists not in the way that Lovewit describes it. This point again brings up the general point about theater: Mammon’s belief, so mocked by Surly, is much the same belief that the audience chooses to have in order to make the play itself function. Again, the suggestion is that theater itself is a con not unlike the ones Face and Subtle carry out. What saves theater is our trust for the playwright; we believe temporarily in what is false because we might get something worth gold out of it, and a good playwright will see to it that we do.
This idea itself, which is repeatedly drawn out during the scene, is in the play itself, for theater itself, the world of the poets, involves a process of believing in things when they are not actually in front of us. In Shakespeare’s Henry V, the Chorus asks the audience to “Think when we talk of horses, that you see them,” and this is exactly what Mammon does. Anticipating his riches gives him extreme pleasure before he even has them. We do the same in anticipating the good that comes or will come out of our experience in the audience.
Dol’s entrance into the middle of Act 2, Scene 3, is another good example of the play’s constant ambiguity about what is a con and what is real. Jonson does not set up the idea that Dol is due to enter, and it is only afterwards that we realize it has been another con to trick Mammon into handing over more money. Like Drugger, Mammon becomes a bit sympathetic, and there is something endearing about his enthusiasm. Surly, on the other hand, is cynical to the point of being dislikeable. Jonson is brilliant at balancing our responses: the conmen are glitteringly clever but morally corrupt while Mammon, though greedy and unpleasant, is self-doubting and sympathetically pathetic. There are no good characters here, just various shades of bad characters. Can any gold really come out of that for us?

Summary and Analysis of Act 2, Scenes 4, 5, and 6

Face and Subtle are delighted that Mammon has been further conned, and they compare him to a fish that has taken the bait and will now be “twitched”–pulled out of the water and killed. The two also talk about the metal that Mammon is going to send them, including his “andirons” (fire-irons) and his “iron shoeing-horn.” Face is about to lrave for the Temple Church to meet Surly when there is a knock at the door. It is Ananias, Subtle’s “Anabaptist” to whom he is going to sell Mammon’s metal.

The two change characters again. Subtle “in a new tune, new gesture, but old language” takes on the mantle of a highly religious old man, temperamental and intimidating. Another whirl of scientific language baffles Ananias, who says he understands “no heathen language” (ungodly language). Ananias is a religious fundamentalist, and he takes it to an extreme: even Greek (the language of the New Testament) is heathen, as is every language but Hebrew (the language of the Old Testament, akin to the language spoken by Jesus).
Subtle reacts vehemently to the suggestion that his alchemical language is heathen, and he prompts Face to define several alchemical terms, asking Ananias angrily, “This’s heathen Greek to you?” after the complicated definitions. Subtle is deeply intimidating, and he briskly asks Ananias, “what are you, sir?”
Ananias has come from Tribulation Wholesome, to whom Subtle purportedly will sell some orphans’ metal, which will be turned into gold for the Anabaptists. Ananias, in an interesting admission, says that the Brethren will only “deal justly” and give the real value of the metal if the orphans’ parents are “sincere professors” (of their understanding of Christianity). Ananias then tells Subtle that the Brethren (the Anabaptists) will not give him any more money for the Philosopher’s Stone until they can see some results—the same problem that Surly posed in the previous scene.
This is no good to Subtle, who cannot provide any visible results and who therefore seizes on the biblical source of Ananias’s name (“the varlet / That cozened the Apostles!”) to justify a hastily improvised fury. Ananias is thrown out, and Subtle makes the final comment of the scene: this rage will fetch the Brethren back and “make ’em haste towards their gulling more.”
Suddenly Face appears unexpectedly with Drugger, who wants a sign for his shop. Subtle does not really know what to suggest, and Face makes helpful suggestions: “What say you to his constellation, Doctor?” This provokes Subtle into a hilarious wordplay representation of “Abel Drugger”: a bell, a man called Dee (presumably suggesting John Dee, the famous occultist) in a rug gown, and a “dog snarling Er,” thus A-bell Dee-rug-er. Drugger hands over some more tobacco for the service. He also mentions “a rich young widow” whom he wants to marry.
Subtle and Face are immediately interested and, when Drugger mentions that this widow (Dame Pliant) “strangely longs to know her fortune,” they persuade Drugger to bring the widow to the house. Her brother (Kastrill), Drugger tells them, is determined that she will marry–at least marrying a knight. When Drugger mentions that Kastrill is determined to be an “angry boy” and quarrel, Face immediately claims that the Doctor “is the only man” to teach him. Drugger exits to fetch them. As he leaves, Face asks him to bring a length of damask.
The two argue about who will marry the widow, and they agree to see her before making a decision. They also agree that Dol will not be told about it. Suddenly Subtle remembers that Face is supposed to be meeting Surly at the Temple Church, and Face rushes off.

Analysis
The methods Subtle uses to attempt to gull Ananias are reworked versions of what he has already used on Dapper, Drugger, and Mammon: anger, torrents of scientific terminology, and the promise of riches.
Ananias, the hyper-Christian, is hypocritical, admitting that the Brethren give preferential treatment to people of their own faith. Ananias is quick to damn all others as “heathen.” Throughout the play Ananias seems, as he does in this scene, dislikeable, arrogant, and–like the character Subtle adopts to oppose him–quick-tempered. Those who are so explicitly Christians in The Alchemist are not treated kindly by Jonson.
It is another interesting reflection of the power of words within the play that Ananias is offended by the idea of a language that is not Hebrew, the original language of the Bible, and therefore considered the most holy. In the play, language itself is a major focus of attention. It can transform things, convince people of things, and be “holy” or “unholy” by nature. The alchemical jargon works almost as a witch’s incantation, though it results in no tangible changes of raw materials.
Ananias’s refusal to bring more money has to be overcome by Subtle, and his final speech in Act 2, Scene 5, is an interesting example of the conmen’s ability to improvise emotion in order to serve their purposes. Subtle even takes stock of what he has just done at the end of the scene, satisfied that he has ensured that the Brethren will come back. We are reminded, meta-theatrically, of the conmen’s startling ability to take up or discard a character at a moment’s notice.
Drugger’s request provides some comic relief after the harsher and more bitter scene with Ananias. Drugger’s warmth and shyness are immediately endearing. The business of making his cute sign is comic, for Subtle and Face specialize in making “outward signs” such as roles, costumes, and other suggestions and signifiers of things that are not really there.
Drugger is also used by Jonson to provide the exposition about Kastrill’s and Dame Pliant’s background that is necessary before they are introduced seamlessly in the next act. Such plot-making is often cited as a key facet of Jonson’s ability as a playwright. It seems that in The Alchemist, as in Volpone and Epicoene, that there is no wasted material—and that, in Tynan’s image, the plot clicks neatly and tightly together like beads on a string.

Summary and Analysis of Act 3, Scenes 1 and 2

Tribulation, Pastor of the Anabaptists, returns to the house with Ananias, who was thrown out by Subtle in the previous act. Tribulation tells Ananias that religious saints have to bear such “chastisements.” Ananias, aggressive as ever, says he does not like Subtle because he is a “heathen.” Tribulation agrees but repudiates Ananias’s suggestion that the “sanctified cause / should have a sanctified course” with the neat half-line, “Not always necessary.” Sometimes, Tribulation argues, the “heathen” children can be “instruments even of the greatest works.” Moreover, Tribulation continues, since Subtle is constantly around fire and furnaces, it is natural that he has become a bit like the devil. Besides, the Brethren really need all the money they will make from him. Ananias greets this rather contrived argument like a religious epiphany, and they knock on the door.

Subtle carries on with his fury from the last scene, forcing the Anabaptists to plead with him and offer some form of compromise before the financial conversation can really begin. Tribulation promises that the Brethren did not intend “to give you the least grievance, but are ready / to lend their willing hands to any project … you direct,” though it is only when he tells Subtle “the Saints / Throw down their purse before you” that Subtle is finally convinced.
Subtle gives a lengthy speech detailing the good the Philosopher’s Stone will bring to the Brethren: curing illness, making the old young again, restoring beauty, turning people’s metal to gold, and–through all of these charities–winning converts to Anabaptism. Subtle also advertises the possibility of being rich enough to raise an army to conquer the world in the name of Anabaptism. Ananias and Tribulation are delighted at this prospect of the Church militant.
Throughout this scene Ananias makes odd and angry corrections of Subtle, which threaten to provoke Subtle’s wrath but are quickly diverted by Tribulation, until Ananias launches into a furious rant against “traditions” seemingly for no reason other than because the word “tradition” has just been spoken.
Eventually Subtle promises Tribulation that the stone will be ready in fifteen days, and he extracts one hundred marks from the Brethren for the orphans’ goods (which Mammon, presumably, has already had delivered into the cellar). When Tribulation balks at this sum, he is reassured, “you’ll make six millions of ’em!” As Tribulation and Ananias exit to view the orphans’ goods, Subtle promises he can “cast” or melt them down, then remold the pewter into gold coins. Tribulation is not sure whether casting of money is legal under Christian law, however, and he resolves to check with the Brethren.
A knock at the door makes Subtle rapidly dispatch the Anabaptists into another room to “view the parcels.”

Analysis
Jonson’s presentation of the Anabaptist Christians as more greedy than the other gulls, despite their good intentions, hits new heights in these two scenes. It is a darkly comic irony that these supposed guardians of morality are so ready to fight, even on the world stage. Tribulation does recognize that Ananias is haunted by “ignorant zeal,” and Tribulation is much more mature in his faith. It is possible that Tribulation is just refraining from judging all the corruption advertised in the promises and possibilities presented by Subtle, but he also lets it all pass as though he condones it. Subtle even advertises the Faustian bargain: “You may be any thing,” perhaps picking up on the Pauline idea of Christians being all things to all men, but in this context one cannot quite reach such a charitable interpretation. When Subtle advertises that the Anabaptists will no longer, out of a lack of resources, have to libel (lie) against the prelates, choose weird names like “Tribulation Wholesome,” or even “rail against plays,” Tribulation responds that such questionable activities are “very notable” methods invented for noble purposes.
Ananias’s fanatical aggression about the tiniest details makes him rather violent and unpredictable. Anabaptists were famous in Jonson’s day for this kind of specific and uncompromising zeal, which we still can observe among some religious fundamentalists today. The Anabaptists’ name and sect stem from the fact that they would only baptize adults because a baby would not know what it believed in. (That is, they chose “believer’s baptism” over paedobaptism.) Tribulation is the wiser and the more worldly of the two, while Ananias’s fervor seems to be expressed mainly by shouting.
The stock joke in this scene is that these extreme Anabaptists are so hypocritical and corrupt that on the one hand they will pick apart language, but on other hand sacrifice key beliefs in order to, for instance, achieve military domination and spread their religion by force. What happened to the Anabaptist doctrine of having a voluntary association of true believers? At least, Tribulation is unsure about the morality of coining money apart from the state, but it is not easy to see how this scruple is more important than worrying about gambling on an alchemist’s ability to turn orphans’ iron into gold.

Summary and Analysis of Act 3, Scenes 3, 4, and 5

The knock on the door is from Face, returning from the Temple Church with the news that Surly has not turned up. Yet Face has met, while out, a Spanish Don who has come with lots of rich goods. Face has persuaded him to come back to the house and sleep with Dol. Subtle exits to get Dol ready for this meeting (“she must prepare perfumes”) and to get rid of the Anabaptists. Face reflects on how much money has already been made today.

Dol enters, and Face tells her about the Spanish Don. Midway through their conversation, Subtle enters with the Anabaptists’ money, wishing they could sell the orphans’ goods a second time. Face suggests that Drugger might buy them. Subtle asks Face how he found this Spanish Don, and Face refuses to tell him, saying only “I ha’ my flies abroad.” Another knock on the door interrupts them. Dapper has returned to meet his “aunt,” and Dol is dispatched to get into her “queen of Fairy” costume.
Suddenly Drugger and Kastrill are at the door, too, and while Subtle and Dol are preparing to gull Dapper, Face has to occupy the three gulls in the room. Drugger brings tobacco (having forgotten the damask) and introduces Kastrill, who aggressively informs Face that he has come to check out the Blackfriars house to see if it is good enough for his sister. Immediately Face cons him into fear and awe of the Doctor, who Face claims is an expert in quarrelling. Face then cleverly praises Dapper in order to intimidate Kastrill.
Face then prompts Drugger to recount the time Drugger drank too much and was sick, and the time he had to pay too much taxes and his hair fell out. He is pretending (of course, Face heard Drugger tell the story) that the Doctor told Face the story. Kastrill is impressed, and he exits with Drugger to fetch his sister.
Face has Dapper hand over a lot of money before meeting the Fairy Queen, and together with Subtle (who is now dressed “like a Priest of Fairy”), the conmen blindfold Dapper and encourage him to throw away all his worldly possessions–his purse, his handkerchiefs, his ring, his silver bracelet–which they then take.
Dol enters with a cithern, and the conmen pretend the fairies have arrived. Dapper, blindfolded, is viciously pinched because “the fairies” claim he has not thrown everything away. With the conmen making the noise of fairies (“ti ti ti ti”) and pinching him, Dapper finally “throws away” a paper with a coin in it, and then a “half crown of gold” that he wears on his wrist, which his love gave him before she left him.
During this ridiculous scene, Dol suddenly sees Mammon at the window. While Subtle continues to talk to Dapper about the Fairy Queen, Face changes onstage into his “Lungs” costume. Subtle gags Dapper with a piece of gingerbread (often, in modern productions, a piece that he finds on the floor), and they lock Dapper in the privy until they can get rid of Mammon.

Analysis
Jonson is brilliant at keeping the plot constantly moving forward, and the announcement of the Spanish Don is another brilliant piece of exposition. The Don is in fact Surly, but the audience (and the conmen) do not yet know it. When Surly enters as the Spaniard, we have already been well-prepared for his arrival, and therefore the first time in the play that the conmen are caught unawares can be explored immediately, without us having to process information about a new character.
The scenes “between cons” have a decidedly behind-the-scenes feel to them, as if we are seeing the actors out of character, backstage. Jonson is careful to thread throughout these scenes the primary dramatic argument which began the play: Subtle and Face are still competing over who is more essential to the con business. Face here, in boasting about having found the Don, makes subtly clear his own argument for his supremacy. Yet, as ever, just as this argument begins to spark up, the conmen are interrupted.
Dol’s line in Act 3, Scene 3, “Yes, say lord General, how fares our camp?” is a quote from Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy, again demonstrating the intertextuality of The Alchemist. Jonson never lets us forget that we are at the theater. This device might usefully be compared with Brecht’s notion of alienation (see the ClassicNote on Mother Courage and her Children), employing the premise that the audience should not get carried away by a play uncritically.
Kastrill is another gull, an “angry boy,” who would have been instantly recognizable to Jonson’s audience. Young, impetuous, and keen to be a man, he is instantly gulled by Face, who puts on a display, involving Dapper and Drugger, of out-and-out masculinity. It is interesting that this set of pretences involves all the men together presenting solidarity and strength, despite earlier scenes showing that they are all vulnerable and longing for supernatural or extraordinary alchemical aid. What Face sees in Kastrill is the difference between what he is (a boy) and what he wants to be (a man). Like any good conman or negotiator, he suggests that he can help the boy get what he wants.
The “Fairy Queen” sequence is almost a play within a play. Dol provides musical accompaniment while Subtle and Face play the fairies. Blindfolded, Dapper is the only audience member in the theater, and he believes what is happening. Unfortunately, this belief leads him to give away all his valuable possessions. Characteristically, Jonson cuts short the Fairy Queen section by introducing Mammon again. The interruptions increase the sense that the conmen’s actions are improvised while they leave the audience wanting more. We are tantalized by each of these brilliant comic set pieces.
There is a humanizing touch in Dapper’s final agreement to give away the keepsake of his love, who has since forsaken him. This tiny, personal, emotional detail makes Dapper much more sympathetic than just a bland legal clerk. Our reaction to the way the conmen so brutally fleece him of his money suddenly becomes morally problematic. Don’t we feel sorry for him as we laugh at what happens to him? Comedy often has its dark side.

Summary and Analysis of Act 4, Scenes 1 and 2

Subtle has left to change into his Doctor’s robes, and Face (as Lungs) greets Mammon, who is here to meet with Dol. Face tells Mammon that the Doctor would be furious if he knew of the meeting, so he warns him to keep his voice down when he is talking to Dol–for the Doctor, he says, is working at the furnace. Face tells Mammon he has been praising him to Dol, and he then leaves to bring her. Mammon gives himself a pep talk, advising himself to “heighten thyself’ and “talk to her all in gold.”

Dol enters with Face, pretending to be a “great lady” (i.e., “noble”), and her conversation with Mammon is an odd mixture of pecuniary puns and obscene double meanings (Mammon leans to “kiss [her] vesture” at one point). Face provides ironic commentary on the scene, and Mammon’s language rises to higher and higher peaks. At one point, Dol Common resembles an “Austriac Prince,” with the Valois nose and the Medici forehead, all symbols of Renaissance nobility.
Mammon talks to Dol about her studies (she is, remember, posing as a mad student of Broughton’s works under the Doctor). Excited by her displayed nobility (“It is a noble humor”), he gives her a diamond ring. He brags that he is the “lord of the philosopher’s stone,” telling Dol she is its “lady.” His fantasies climb as he dreams aloud of removing her from the Blackfriars house and taking her off to “a free state” where they will eat the most glorious foods, such as “shrimps … in a rare butter, made of dolphins’ milk.”
Face returns to tell Mammon he is too loud, and he takes the two of them offstage to a “fitter place,” warning him not to mention Broughton.
Subtle comes back into the room after Dol and Mammon have left to announce that the widow has arrived and that she is pretty. Face realizes he will have to change out of his Lungs costumes and back into his “captainship” as Captain Face. He angrily suggests that Subtle will have “the first kiss, ’cause I am not ready.” Both conmen seem keen to marry the widow.
As Kastrill enters, Subtle immediately has him quarrel, and unsurprisingly he is appalled at Kastrill’s “ill logic” and lack of true quarrelling “grammar.” This critique intimidates and impresses Kastrill, who resolves to learn quarrelling from the Doctor. Subtle is in the middle of his quarrelling lecture when he suddenly sees Dame Pliant, the widow, and kisses her several times, which delights Kastrill. He then takes her hand and relates her fortune: she is to marry “a man of art,” perhaps the Doctor himself.
Face enters and interrupts. He is invited to kiss Dame Pliant. Immediately he and Subtle talk aside, and Face reveals that “The count is come,” and either Subtle or Face must occupy him. Both of them want to stay with the widow, however, but eventually Subtle takes her and Kastrill upstairs to look at something that will reveal more to them.

Analysis
Tonally, the Mammon-Dol love scene is one of the most unusual in the play, and it is often cut down or cut altogether in performance. Jonson’s expert balance between sentimentality and brutality, however, comes to a head in this central scene of the play: it is a love scene between a wealthy man who has no wealth and a noblewoman who is a prostitute. What this scene really displays is Mammon’s capacity to delude himself completely, and the irony of his comparing Dol to Renaissance nobility is that, of course, she is only a Blackfriars prostitute. It is at once a hilarious and sad construction. We feel sorry for Mammon’s genuine tenderness, for we know he is being tricked, yet we revel in the irony of, as Face says, having “Dol Common for a great lady.” Is this a brutal scene which exploits Mammon’s genuine tenderness for Dol, leading us to feel sorry for Mammon and what he is put through? Or is it rather a scene in which greedy and self-obsessed Mammon gets exactly what he deserves? We cannot quite laugh without facing the moral question as well.
Again faith and belief are a central question in the scene, for Dol claims not to believe Mammon’s boasts about his wealth and the luxurious lifestyle he will enjoy. That is one reason why he gives her the diamond ring: “to bind you to believe me.” Again and again in The Alchemist the gulls are made to feel that they are being questioned, and in persuading Dol, Mammon gulls himself even further.
Mammon’s verse hits an interesting note when it reaches the final description of foodstuffs (lines 155-169). As the climax of his fantasies in this scene, the greediness of his appetite seems a fitting emblem of his character throughout. One might see the lines also as an indication that the actor playing Mammon should be fat. When Ian Richardson, the greatest Mammon in recent memory, played the scene at London’s National Theatre in 2006, he gave it a rising crescendo toward which this final speech was a truly memorable peak.
Face’s line in Act 4, Scene 2, wishing for a suit to “fall now, like a curtain,” is another key theatrical image among the wealth of theatrical language in the play. This tension–the on-stage discussion of costume–also reminds us that Face does not trust Subtle at all.
Kastrill’s earlier introduction in Act 3, Scene 4, has already slightly intimidated him at the hands of Face. Here his gulling is extremely quick, perhaps because Subtle is keen to move on to the widow. Dame Pliant, who hardly says a word in this scene or elsewhere in the play, represents a sexual object to be set alongside the financial objects the conmen desire. Accordingly, the conmen immediately argued over who would get to sleep with her first. She also (and perhaps more importantly, to them) is a financial object, being recently widowed; a marriage to her would be extremely profitable. In some ways, this empty vessel of a widow, pretty and rich, is the embodiment of everything Subtle and Face are out to gain.

Summary and Analysis of Act 4, Scenes 3 and 4

There is another argument, increasing in ferocity, about whether Subtle or Face should have the Widow. Face even offers Subtle money in order that he can have the widow (Subtle refuses), and it is only when Subtle threatens to tell Dol about what Face wants that the argument ceases, begrudgingly.

Surly enters, dressed as a Spaniard, and he speaks in Spanish to the conmen, neither of whom seems to understand him. The two conmen mock and laugh openly at the costume, thinking that he cannot understand English. They feel his pockets and tell him mockingly that he shall be “cozened”–thinking the Spaniard will not know the word. When Surly talks of his “Señora,” they remember that he is here to sleep with Dol, who is otherwise occupied with Mammon. This poses something of a problem, and the argument instantly flares back up.
Face argues that the Widow should be given over to the Don. Subtle, backtracking, tries to get money out of him, as Face had earlier suggested, for “Subtle’s share” in the widow. Face, his interest in the widow now removed in favor of giving her to the Don, threatens to call Dol, and Subtle now has to concede. Subtle is furious, calling Face a “terrible rogue,” but the two shake hands on the deal (further evidence of their mutual distrust). Face leaves to bring Dame Pliant and Kastrill, and Subtle takes Surly up to the bathroom. As he leaves, he tells the audience that he intends to sleep with the widow regardless and thus revenge himself on “this impetuous Face.”
Face re-enters with Dame Pliant and Kastrill, who seems delighted at the idea that his sister will be a “Spanish Countess.” Subtle enters, and Dame Pliant shocks the assembled company by saying she will “never brook a Spaniard.” Subtle’s attempt at persuasion is to say, “you must love him or be miserable,” and Kastrill’s attempt is stronger: “you shall love him, or I’ll kick you.” Subtle and Face then paint a picture of Dame Pliant as a Countess, finely dressed and traveling in pomp with eight horses and coaches to hurry her through London, tempting her further.
Surly now enters unexpectedly, and Face has to cover (with, perhaps, a hidden aggressive comment to Subtle): “the doctor knew he would be here, by his art!” He picks up Dame Pliant and carries her out to the garden. Subtle sees the opportunity to get rid of Mammon, takes Kastrill out to continue “our quarrelling lesson,” and then sends Face to get Mammon.

Analysis
The Spanish Don is an interesting contemporary choice for a city comedy (that is, a comedy set in a modern-day city). The contemporary resonance of that character is acknowledged in Dame Pliant’s line explaining why she will never marry a Spaniard: “Never ’sin eighty-eight could I abide ’em,” she says, then acknowledging that 1588 was three years before she was born (making her exactly twenty-five years old). Everyone would know that 1588 was the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an English triumph, which tipped the balance of a long and frightening conflict in England’s favor for the first time.
The joking at the expense of the Spaniard has been read a number of ways—more deeply than as a mockery of the Spanish language and Spanish costume. On many levels, the play is about the importance of what Face calls the “common cause” in Act 4, Scene 3, and the gulls do have a common cause in their greed. Similarly, it is important for Face to remind Subtle of the “common cause”; as Dol points out in the play’s first scene, the con only works if three people’s efforts point in the same direction, a “venture tripartite.” Surly is a con as the Spaniard; what is this suggesting as the common cause, if any, of Spain and England?
When Surly enters, dressed like a Spaniard, the audience might believe that the same actor was simply doubling as an entirely different character, not Surly in disguise. Like Face and Subtle, we thus might also buy into the convention; we do not yet know for sure that the Spanish don is really Surly. The theater game is, again, double: the gulls believe in the conmen while we “believe” in the theater.
The argument over Dame Pliant escalates in this scene. Subtle’s promise that he will be revenged further complicates the sense that the play is starting to accelerate beyond the conmen’s control. Surly’s sudden entrance into Act 4, Scene 3, foreshadows the numerous entrances into Act 4, Scene 7.

Summary and Analysis of Act 4, Scenes 5, 6, and 7

Dol enters “in her fit of talking.” Mammon has mentioned Broughton, which he was told not to mention, and her (pretend) madness has been activated. Mammon panics, and he desperately tries to get her to talk sense, but she will not. Face enters, dressed as Lungs, and he asks Mammon what happened.

Subtle shouts from offstage, “What’s to do there?” and the tension escalates toward a terrific entry at which the characters “disperse,” leaving only Mammon to pathetically ask, “Where shall I hide me?” Subtle pretends fury and stamps on Mammon’s weak suggestion that “There was no unchaste purpose,” telling him that his behavior will “retard / The work, a month at least.” Suddenly there is “a great crack and noise within,” and Lungs enters to report that the furnace, with all its glasses and scientific equipment, has been destroyed. Subtle says nothing but “falls down as in a swoon.”
There is a knock on the door, and Face tells Mammon, who stands “readier to depart” than the “fainted” Subtle, that Dol’s brother is at the door. Dol’s brother is as furious, Face tells Mammon, as Dol is mad, and he advises Mammon to escape as quickly as possible. Subtle “seems to come to himself” and rails against the sin and vice that has ruined his work. Face warns Mammon again that he is grieving Subtle and will grieve Dol’s brother more. Mammon agrees to leave. As he is going, Face persuades him to give “a hundred pound” to charity in penance for what he has done–and Face will “send one to you to receive it.”
The door closes, Mammon exits, and–just like that–Subtle is back on his feet. The two of them are delighted that “so much of our care” is “now cast away.” The conmen resolve now to sort out the matter of the Spanish Don and the Widow; it seems as if things have just become much easier. (They haven’t.) As the two conmen exit, Surly and Dame Pliant enter. Surly, now speaking as himself, attempts to explain to her what is going on in this “nest of villains,” but she does not really understand him. Surly tells Pliant that he himself will deal with “these household-rogues.”
At that, Subtle enters and continues to mock the Spanish Don by speaking in English, but he is astonished when, having announced that he will pick the Don’s pockets, the Don answers back in English: “Will you, Don bawd and pickpurse?” Surly immediately fights Subtle, who shouts, “Help! Murder!” As Face enters, Surly bitterly and verbosely delivers a long speech about the con he has uncovered. During this speech, Face makes a quiet exit, and–when Subtle tries to do the same–Surly restrains him.
Face returns with Kastrill, telling him that “now’s the time, if ever you will quarrel.” Face sets Kastrill, delighted to be quarrelling, onto the unsuspecting Surly, who is baffled. Face tells Kastrill that the real Spanish Count is indeed on the way, and that this is an imposter. Kastrill, encouraged by Face, verbally attacks him.
Just as things are settling down, Drugger enters unexpectedly. Face bravely incorporates him into the plans, telling him to “make good what I say” and accusing Surly of cheating Drugger out of tobacco. Drugger plays along, to Surly’s consternation, and when Kastrill refuses to stop “quarrelling,” Surly seems on the verge of escaping.
Ananias, elated because casting dollars has been declared lawful by his fellows, now arrives through the door. He immediately delivers the final blow to Surly’s resistance, attacking his Spanish costume as “profane, lewd, superstitious and idolatrous.” Understandably, Surly escapes.
Kastrill is pleased with himself for quarrelling so well, and he runs after Surly to make good his threats to stop him from returning. Face sends Drugger off to borrow another Spanish suit (presumably to make good on his theory to Kastrill that the real Spanish Don is on the way), and he dispatches Ananias to confer with his brethren about a safe place to undertake the casting of money.
Face mocks Subtle for being “so down upon the least disaster” and makes him grudgingly admit that Subtle would not have coped in that situation without Face. Just when it seems that this chaotic scene has been returned to order, Dol enters with the biggest shock of the play. Lovewit, the master of the house, has returned, and he is standing outside with forty neighbors.
Panic ensues. Face silences Subtle and Dol and makes a plan. He will change back into Jeremy Butler, they will pack their gold and goods into trunks, and they will escape to Ratcliff, where he will meet them tomorrow. But first, Subtle will shave him, for Jeremy Butler, unlike Captain Face, was clean-shaven.

Analysis
This section of the play is the glorious climax of the farce. Jonson makes everything go wrong until the moment when all the gulls arrive, uninvited, which tests to the limits Face’s powers of improvisation. Lovewit’s arrival finally forces a retreat.
Subtle’s sighting of Mammon “in sin” justifies the explosion of the furnace because alchemy cannot, it is said, take place in a house where sin has been committed, or on behalf of someone who was lustful. Nicholas Hytner’s production at the National Theatre, London, in 2006 made clear that Dol and Mammon actually were caught in the act, with Dol grabbing Mammon as if panicked and, as Subtle enters, freezing in a damning tableau. Still, this and the explosion that follow it are palpably fake; only Mammon’s reactions are genuine. The explosion is more likely to be a small-scale explosion which Face sets off to represent the furnace exploding. In any case, any explosion is deliberate.
The explosion itself has given directors a lot of fun. Hytner’s was reasonably low-key, with a lot of smoke and a loud bang. Hytner said in an interview that the conmen just set off a “stick of dynamite,” always ready as their “get out of jail free card.” The Swan Theatre Company production in Cambridge actually had the door to the furnace room blown off its hinges and flat onto the floor with a huge explosion, visibly set up by Face “behind the scenes.”
Surly’s unmasking reverses the balance against the conmen, and the lines between reality and illusion are dangerously blurred. With Kastrill and Drugger’s combined aggression a solution is found, and the story is hastily re-written by Face to make everything plausible to Kastrill and to ensure the widow’s hand in marriage. It is notable that this scene openly refers to Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy; Drugger is sent to fetch Hieronymo’s hat and ruff, which itself would have been in the company’s store—Hieronymo is Kyd’s main character.
Earlier, too, Dol quotes from Broughton’s A Concent of Scripture (1590) in her “fit of talking.” (Broughton’s work attempts to answer questions of Old Testament chronology.) This further adds to the sense that the play is in part a patchwork of recycled texts, of old pretenses re-adapted. When Subtle enters with the lines “O I have lived too long,” we can be forgiven for comparing him to King Lear.
It is typical of Jonson’s plot-work that, after the terrific pileup of gull after gull, he retains the biggest and best trick for last. Lovewit’s return, completely unexpected by the audience and the characters alike, is a brilliant way of ensuring that the play escalates into its highest gear for the final act. Face now must revert to being “Jeremy the Butler,” a character we have not yet encountered. Anne Barton thinks that Jeremy is Face’s real name, despite the fact that it is not stated in the Dramatis Personae. It would be still more intriguing if this is just another costume in his wardrobe. It is perhaps part of Jonson’s design that Face, who wins over Subtle in the play’s final scene, does so because he has this last trumping disguise–he can exploit his theatricality one level further.

Summary and Analysis of Act 5, Scenes 1, 2, and 3

Lovewit stands outside the house with the Neighbors, who complain to him of all the people who have been going in and out of the house. When Lovewit asks where Jeremy the Butler has been, they say they have not seen him for five or six weeks. Lovewit, worried, sends for a locksmith, and then knocks one more time.

Face, now “clean-shaven as Jeremy,” opens the door and tells Lovewit to back away from the door because the plague has been in the house. Lovewit asks Face if he has had the plague, and when he says he has not, Lovewit asks who has—only Face had been left in the house. “The cat,” replies Face, somewhat bemused, but Lovewit is suspicious. When he repeats what the neighbors have just said, Face denies it outright, without explanation.
This may be a stalemate, but Surly and Mammon arrive, complaining bitterly about the treatment they have had from the conmen, barging past Lovewit to hammer on the door. Lovewit questions them, and they talk of “Subtle and his Lungs.” Face tries to laugh it off as madness, but Surly is suspicious, as well: “This’s a new Face?” he asks. Surly and Mammon exit, promising to return with a search warrant.
“What means this?” asks Lovewit. Face continues to deny all knowledge, but the Neighbors claim to recognize Surly and Mammon. Kastrill now enters and furiously knocks on the door, and he shouts for his sister, who is still inside the house. Before long, he is joined by Ananias and Tribulation. “The world’s turned Bedlam,” says Lovewit, and at that, the final straw breaks the camel’s back. Dapper, having been forgotten in the privy, shouts, “Master Captain, master Doctor!” Inside, Subtle runs to try to shut him up.
Face tries to improvise an answer, telling Lovewit that it is the voice of a spirit, but this is no good. Lovewit marches Face inside and instructs the neighbors to depart. “I am an indulgent master,” Lovewit says, and he instructs Face to reveal all. Face asks him to pardon “th’abuse of your house,” and he promises to help Lovewit “to a widow that … will make you seven years younger.” Amazingly, Lovewit seems pleased, and the two exit together.

Analysis
After such a tightly wound build-up, the plot of The Alchemist unravels in minutes, and with one final arrival into the scene which Face’s improvisation cannot explain away. Face tries many tactics: straightforward lying, locking the door, claiming that the plague has been to the house, and–in the end–arguing that Dapper’s voice is that of a spirit. But Lovewit seems wiser than the gulls of the play, and he is capable of putting two and two together in a way that many other characters fail to do. His reasoning throughout this scene is what trips Face up. Face, too, does not attempt to hoodwink him at the very end; he seems honest in giving up the widow as a compromise.
What Face does not mention, however, is what will happen to the money left over from the cons. One option, I suggest, is that it is stored in a trapdoor in the stage. This could be the “pelf” to which Face refers in his epilogue.
With the return of the gulls, this is a more intense version of Act 4, Scene 7, with the new presence of Lovewit. Lovewit prevents the possibility of drawing out or delaying the con, for Face cannot surmount its difficulties. It is brilliant that Jonson reintroduces Dapper, who has been entirely forgotten by the conmen and the audience. One of the exciting features of the play is its accuracy in terms of time and Jonson’s painstaking care in picking up all the loose ends in the denouement. Lovewit, mentioned in the first scene, returns for the play’s final scenes, and Dapper, left in the privy to await the Fairy Queen, is not lost.
This is, incidentally, the only part of the play not set inside Lovewit’s house, and therefore it is something of a staging challenge. It presents a real difficulty to directors. Sam Mendes’s RSC production of 1993 used the same set, with Face entering through the same door he had just exited, employing another aspect of meta-theater.

Summary and Analysis of Act 5, Scenes 4 and 5

Back inside Lovewit’s house, Subtle berates Dapper for allowing his gag to crumble away in his mouth—“the fume did overcome me,” Dapper says pathetically, having spent the last hour in a toilet. Face returns, and tells Subtle that he has succeeded in getting rid of Lovewit for tonight. Subtle rejoices at this news, calling Face “the precious king / Of present wits.”

Dol enters “like the Queen of Fairy,” and Subtle forces Dapper to his knees. The conmen indulge in a brief and rather rushed meeting between Dapper and his supposed aunt. Dapper kisses her velvet gowns, Dol strokes his head, and she gives him his spirit in a purse to wear about his neck. Subtle instructs Dapper to bring “a thousand pound / Before tomorrow night,” and as Dapper swears he will, Face, from another room, tries to end proceedings. Dapper is swiftly dispatched by Subtle to sell all of his lands.
Face returns and sends Subtle to the door to meet Drugger, who has brought the Spanish suit. Subtle has to tell him to bring a parson to the house. When he returns, Face takes parts of the suit and exits.
While Face is out, Subtle tells Dol that he intends to take all the goods but not to meet Face in Ratcliff as agreed. He will, like the play, unexpectedly “turn his course” and go somewhere else. Subtle outlines to Dol his dream of what he will do when they “have all,” and the two are kissing when Face returns to send Subtle to collect the parson from Drugger. Face leaves to bestow him, and Subtle crowingly observes that Face thinks he has the upper hand.
When Face returns again, the three itemize the things they have conned from the gulls onstage and off, and they pack them into bags and trunks. Face announces to Subtle and Dol that his master knows all and will keep all the proceeds—an assertion the play never verifies. Subtle and Dol are shocked into silence. A knock on the door prompts them to escape, cursing Face, “over the back wall” without any of the proceeds.
Officers are at the door, and Lovewit enters, newly married to the widow, stripping off his Spanish suit and discarding it before opening the door. Mammon, Surly, Kastrill, Tribulation, and Ananias pour into the house, searching for Captain Face, the Doctor, and “Madame Suppository.” Lovewit invites them to search, and they do, but they find nothing. Lovewit says there are just empty walls, slightly smoked, “a few cracked pots and glasses,” and a bit of graffiti on the walls. Lovewit has met just one person, the widow, whom he has married.
Mammon is hugely relieved to find his own goods and wants to take them back from the cellar so that “I may have home yet.” Lovewit tells him that if he brings “order of law” to prove they are his, then he can take them. Mammon says he’d “rather lose ‘em” and leaves, resolving to “mount a turnip cart and preach / The end o’the world.” Surly, having lost the widow, refuses to cheat himself “with that same foolish vice of honesty!” Tribulation and Ananias are beaten away by Lovewit, and, in a final cruel touch, so is Drugger.
There is a slightly positive turn in the final moments. Kastrill is deeply impressed by the violent, drinking Lovewit. He seems quite satisfied with his new brother-in-law. The two of them go off together with the widow to smoke and drink. Face, left alone on stage to deliver the epilogue, comments that for his part “a little fell in this last scene.” Face refers to the “pelf” (reward) which he has got, and he promises to use it to “feast you often” (meaning us, the audience)—as well as to bring more people to the theater.

Analysis
This final movement of the play is the key to its unraveling and resolution. Face immediately lies to Subtle about what has gone on–clearly, Face’s resolution has been adapted to his own needs, and Subtle has been cut out of it. This is a central point in this final piece of theatricality: the Fairy Queen is both the least and the most believable part of the play. To the audience, if not to Dapper himself, Dol’s performance as a Fairy is highly unconvincing. Yet, while that performance goes on, another one is working simultaneously towards a conclusion. Face knows that he has to bide his time until Mammon’s officers return to the door, and Subtle and Dol need to be delayed until the last possible moment if he is going to manage to force them out without any of the profits.
Face also manipulates Subtle: Subtle meets Drugger at the door, collects the costume, and tells him to fetch a parson. For the first time, Subtle is doing something without knowing it, for the parson is not to marry Pliant to Face, but to Lovewit. When Face leaves, Subtle’s plan to “turn our course” comes too late, because unbeknownst to him, Face has already turned his course, which is over the back wall with nothing.
To have the proceeds from the cons not seen onstage is perfectly accurate if, as the play suggests, we are seeing the final day of six weeks of conning. It makes sense that there has been much more going on outside of the time of the play itself. Face’s inheritance from the cons, after Dol and Subtle leave hurriedly over the back wall, is considerable and not specifically counted up. As with everything else in the play, we do not really know what its theatrical status is. As about so much else in the play, we now ask: is this supposed to be real or illusory? It is certainly significant that, in a play full of imaginary people, spirits and fairies, Subtle’s final threat to Face is to hang himself and “haunt thee”.
The last scene of the play does nothing to resolve our sympathies with Subtle and Face; in fact, seeing Mammon gulled of so much money that he will lose his house is immediately sympathetic. Yet, he and the other gulls in this final scene constantly refer to the house in theatrical terms: Ananias calls it a “cave of cozenage” and Mammon wonders aloud if everything has been “a dream,” echoing the meta-theatrical endings of plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The more we remember that this is a play, the less we worry about the struggles of imaginary characters.
Jonson even invokes “decorum,” the classical word for theatrical justice, leading us to question whether we think the play has been just or fair. Nevertheless, in the end, the ending of The Alchemist keeps the lines between theater and life somewhat blurred, such as by verifying Surly’s observation that honesty is a “foolish vice.” The winner, Face, remains just that—a mask, a Face—who is theatrically flexible and thereby confounding. And so much of life is this way, so much of it consists of images and interpretations, confusions and dissimulations, remaking of self, plots against others, and mistakes about reality, when we view Jonson’s play we see evidence for the conclusion that all the world is, indeed, a stage.

thanks alot it very useful

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