How the Puritans are portrayed in "The Alchemist" in Relation to Their Place in Society at the Time

As we discussed on Tuesday, there is definite tension between the Puritan characters in "The Alchemist" and Face and Subtle. Subtle and Face treat Ananias inhumanely and unfairly, and Face is not punished for his fraud of cruelty at the end of the play. Moreover, Jonson clearly shows his dislike towards Puritans in many instances in the play. For example, Puritans are portrayed as only "deal[ing] justly" (2.5.58)  with other Puritans, highlighting an irony in the Puritan faith, as they claim to be "faithful Brother[s]" (2.5.7), but in "The Alchemist," they are unfaithful by participating in Alchemy.

In Jean Howard's "The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England," he discusses the tension between Puritans and the theater. He states that, "Written in 1577 by a nonconformist preacher with Puritan learnings, this tract constructs the theater as one of an ensemble of institutions and practices destroying the religious and social fabric of England. Northbrooke [the preacher], stages the tract as a dialogue between an old man coming from church and a young man who has missed services because of his dedication to the life of idle pastimes, the worst of which are playing, dicing, and facing... For a time, at least, the church and the theater were posited as symbolically opposed places."

This passage made me think of our discussion on Tuesday about "The Alchemist" representing England itself, and how the tension between theater, and Jonson himself, and the puritans, is clearly portrayed, just as it existed in England at the time. 

Week Eight: What's in a Name?

All of the characters in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist have what might be considered odd names. Each individual listed in the play’s dramatis personae seems to be named after the personality trait that best characterizes him or her and bears some correlation to his or her particular role in the play.

As an example, let us examine Sir Epicure Mammon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “epicure” refers to an individual “who gives himself up to sensual pleasure” or “is choice and dainty in eating and drinking” (OED), and “mammon” means an “inordinate desire for wealth or possessions, personified as a devil or demonic agent” (OED). In the play, the character Mammon comes across as a very covetous fellow whose purpose in visiting Subtle (whom he believes to be an alchemist) is to transform what he owns into something far more valuable in an effort to satiate his cupidity: “This night I’ll change/ All that is metal in my house to gold” (Alchemist II.i.29-30).

Jonson may have used this unique technique as a vehicle for depersonalization. In a sense, the names of the characters in the play do not refer to specific individuals, but rather to general characterizations of the various types of people one might encounter in the London of Jonson’s day. The play, therefore, is not as much an analysis of one particular group of knaves and their deceitfulness as it is a commentary on the behaviors of the diverse occupants of Renaissance London. Essentially, Jonson’s play serves to scrutinize a society. Do you agree or disagree with this assertion? If you agree with it, how might this sense of depersonalization differentiate the London of Jonson from that of Thomas Dekker in The Shoemaker’s Holiday?

Our wills and fates

In his lectures on Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley declares that Hamlet is "a man who at any other time and in any other circumstances than those presented would have been perfectly equal to his task" (93-94). The task referred to is, of course, the one the ghost of his father has assigned to him--to kill his uncle Claudius. For some reason, Hamlet is unable to complete his task until the last possible moment. Bradley notes that Hamlet assumes he can obey the ghost at any time, and does not need reassurance; he could easily raise the people against the King, because Laertes has absolutely no trouble doing so; the play-within-the-play is to convince himself of Claudius's guilt; and finally, Hamlet has no specific plot or plan to actually kill Claudius (84). Considering these facts about Hamlet's situation, what do you think is the cause of Hamlet's delay?

In addition to his delay, Hamlet's will is equally important to the action of his play; for as much as Hamlet does not do, we are that much more intrigued by what he does do. He puts on an antic disposition for Ophelia's sake (II. i.); he requests first a speech about the murder of Priam, and then "The Murder of Gonzago" to be played before his uncle (II. ii.); he kills Polonius (III. iv); he manages to exact the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern once they arrive in England (V. ii.). And yet, in the last scene, as if he has decided to resign from pulling the strings of the puppets who inhabit his play, we hear him say things like "Let be" (V. ii. 223), and "Let it be" (V. ii. 359). But since the last thing he does is kill Claudius, what can we infer about the state of Hamlet's will in the end? What is Shakespeare saying by contrasting Hamlet's will with his delay? What does this do to our impression of Hamlet as a character? How do other characters highlight Shakespeare's theme of will versus fate?

The World of London

The Shoemaker’s Holiday takes place in a very bustling and cosmopolitan London. As Professor Deutermann stated, the population of the City roughly quadrupled during the era that the play was written. The surge in population was no doubt a major boon for culture and commerce within the city yet I feel it also minimized the importance of the individual. Guilds, partnerships, and the like became the new smallest functional unit of society at least within the bourgeois classes. Collaboration replaced the individualism of life in small towns and villages. The individual became insignificant in the midst of multitudes of people, ceased to be pragmatically productive as a result, and quickly faded into irrelevance, if not saved by others. In short, Jane is a victim of the alienation that comes with the urban landscape. Scene 4 in Act the Third tells how Jane has, after leaving the shoemaking shop, vanished into London: “Marge: And So, indeed, we heard not of her, but I hear/she lives in London; but let that pass. “


Similarly, the urban landscape promoted a sense of worldly alienation. Events outside of the city are largely disregarded as happenings on the fringe. In a world inexperienced for the most part with metropolises and lacking any sort of communicative technology, I can only think it natural that the city would become one’s world. The city brought together various people, diplomats, and merchants from all over and was in a sense a microcosmic world that did indeed take precedence over the world at large for city dwellers such as Simon Eyre, his band, and even the King who seemingly disregards the war until the final two lines of the play. In this respect, one would think Ralph is very much the outsider, having survived the war in France though returning home crippled. However, Ralph, despite his wounds, is very quickly reabsorbed into typical bourgeois life by the City and its occurrences, further, the characters closest to Ralph make only slight inquiries about Ralph’s wounds, almost developing a stigma towards them due to their origins “outside of their world”, so to speak.


The City and its society is all important in the play, and though comedic at times, it illustrates the roll of cities in the time to come and their attractiveness - living in a city provided the means to rise in society, just like Eyre's ascension (however fanciful it was), and loosened the rigidity of a socially stratified society. Ironically, London provided the means to get ahead while simultaneously providing the means to get left behind by both society and the world at large.