Presentation on English Literature of the Elizabethan Period about the theme of greed in Ben Jonson's play the Alchemist

1. By
Jahnu Deori
jahnudeori11@g
mail.com

2. Greed
in

3.  The play can be seen as an explosion of
human greed.
 All the characters are greedy for material
gain, be it money, status,
power or love(intimate relationships).
 Feeding on other’s greed to fulfill one’s own
greed.
 Greed as the downfall of the gulls and less
witty characters.

4. GREED
IN THE CHARACTERS
The Con-artists
The Gulls

5. THE CON-ARTISTS
The trio tricksters
Face Subtle Dol Common

6. Face ( A.K.A. Capt. Face, A.K.A Lungs, A.K.A.
Jeremy the Butler or Housekeeper)
 He is considered the mastermind of all the tricks.
 He was greedy for money and his job was basically to bring greedy gulls to
the house and retrieve them of their wealth.
 He was also lusty and wanted to marry Dame Pliant, who was the rich
widow.
 By the end of the play, he was the one from the trio who escapes any loss
and is not punished for his greed.

7. ¥ He promised and tricked the gulls into giving them
money and wealth via the Philosopher’s stone.
¥ For his greed for money, he acted as a Doctor and
Astrologer to trick people into giving him money.
¥ Because of his excessive greed to take all the money
and goods for himself and running away with Dol
betraying Face, he lost everything and has to leave
bare hand.

8. DOL COMMON
† She was a prostitute.
† She was a helper and a colleague of Face and Subtle
and was equally greedy as them for money.
† Dol pretends to be the Fairy Queen with Dapper and
a mad lady scholar with Mammon to lure them and
draw money out of them.
† She along with Subtle planned to run away with all
the money but at the end, she too end up with
nothing.

9. The Gulls
 Dapper
 He was a greedy man who wanted to win
every game in gambling.
 He fantasies and desires to live a large,
exciting life and become the richest person in
London.
 He was promised a spirit, which would help
him win every game and earn a bunch of
money.

10. Abel the Drugger
 He is actually portrayed as a honest
tobacconist who is the least greedy of
them all.
 He went to them for astrological help
from the astrologer Subtle to help him
setup his new business.
 We get a little hint of his greediness
when he asks help from the conmen to
set him up with the young rich widow.

11. Lovewit
 He is the master of the house and
Face(Jeremy) as well.
 He is a person who is greedy for
money as well as greedy for
intimate relationship.
 He along with Face, are the
characters who are commended
even after being greedy and Lovewit
got to marry Dame Pliant and shares
in the trio’s earnings.

12. Sir Epicure Mammon
 He is depicted as the most outrageous and
the greedy of them all.
 He wanted the philosopher’s stone and the
elixir of life.
 He was also lusty and wanted to be the
richest to get bunch of wives and
concubines.
 He got tricked and seduced by Dol disguised
as a mad scholar from a rich family.
 By the end, his lust is blamed for the misfire
of experiment and he ends up with nothing
despite throwing a large sum of money for
the stone.

13.  Ananias and Tribulation
Wholesome
 Ananias and his pastor, Tribulation
Wholesome, are the Puritans from
Amsterdam and are Anabaptists.
 They wanted the Philosopher’s stone
for religious cause as well as for their
greed of power.

14. Kastril
 He is the obnoxious brother of
Dame Pliant.
 We can say he is greedy for
status because he wanted his
sister to marry a rich man even
if she doesn’t want to.

15. Face’s Epilogue
At the end of the play, Face is rewarded with an
epilogue where he tries to lure the audience and
promises to use the money he tricked to ‘feast you
often’( meaning the audience) to bring more
people to the theatre. By this, the writer might be
satirizing the audience or the public, that they are
quite similar to the gulls in the play and are greedy
for ‘feasts’ or similar in a way that they are tricked
as well, having parted with good money for a
fiction that disappears into a nothingness.

16. Conclusion
 The greed of Subtle and Face acts as the driving
force of the play.
 The conmen, Face, Subtle and Dol did what they did
for their greed for money.
 Money is one of the most important aspect in the
play.
 In the play, the ‘philosopher’s stone’ symbolizes the
dream of humans to earn wealth and life.
 The ‘gold’ symbolizes the lust and greed of people to
earn materialistic pleasure.
 Feeding one’s greed to fulfill owns greed.