Play

2. Name : Hafiz Tayyab Saleem
Class: M.A English (Morning)
Roll No: 1006
Subject : Drama
University of Okara.

3. Act 4 Characters
 Face
 Subtle
 Sir Epicure Mammon
 Dol
 Kastril
 Dame Pliant

4. Face
• His name is Face but he is faceless
person.
• He is a resourceful, quick-witted
improviser.
• He entices victims to the house.
• He furnishes his master’s house as the
Alchemist’s headquarters.

5. Subtle
• The "Alchemist" of the play's title.
• Meaning "crafty" or "clever" in Elizabethan English,
it is an appropriate choice.
• He disguises himself as "the Doctor" to carry out
his con.
• When the master of the house
returns, he is forced to take flight
without his gains.

6. Sir Epicure Mammon
• Sir Epicure Mammon, a fantastic voluptuary.
• He seeks the philosopher’s stone to help him to
unbounded self-indulgence.
• He is also the greediest gull of the lot.
• This Character’s name associates him with a love of
sensual pleasure and with a love of money.

7. Dol
• Dol Common, the third of the tricksters, the common
mistress of the other two.
• She can act various roles, such as an exotic lady or
the Queen of the Fairies, to carry out Subtle’s
various schemes.
• She is also a prostitute.
• She is also a attractable.

8. Kastril, The angry Boy
• Kastril, an angry boy, brother of the Widow Pliant.
• He has come to London to learn to smoke and
quarrel.
• His "quarrelling" is rather unimpressive.
• He is much taken with old Lovewit, who quarrels
well, and consents to his sister’s marriage to him.
• He is not most
Intelligent of the
Character.

9. Dame Plaint
• Dame Pliant, an easygoing, attractive young widow,
affianced to Drugger but perfectly willing to accept
another husband.
• Subtle and Face both hope to marry her, but the
latter decides that it is safer to hand her over to
Lovewit, his master.
• Her status as a young, rich widow makes her
attractive to those interested in her beauty and
wealth

10. Act 4 Scene 1 Summary
• Mammon enters the house and Lungs/Face greets him by
waffling a bunch of garbage about how the great alchemist
(Subtle) is busy turning Mammon's base metal into gold and
silver.
• Mammon just wants to know where Doll, the "lady scholar" is.
• Lungs/Face warns Mammon not to talk to her about anything
religious…otherwise she might flip out and go into a "rage.“
• Plus, the great alchemist can't know anything about the steamy
hook-up or else he won't produce the stone for Mammon.
• In an aside, Face tells us how awesome it is that he gets to
see his prostitute pal, Doll Common, dress up and play the part
of a “great lady.”
• While he waits to meet the "lady," Mammon gives himself a
hilarious and R-rated pep-talk about how he's going to sweet

11. Act 4 Scene 1 Summary
• Doll traipses in. She's disguised as a poor baron's daughter
and proceeds to do the following:
1) Talk dirty to Mammon while
2) Bragging about how smart and scholarly she is.
• Soon enough, Mammon's eating out of the palm of Doll's
hand and promising that he'll shower her with riches. He also
does his fair share of dirty talk.
• This is the cue that Lungs/Face has been waiting for. He
enters the room and suggests that maybe Mammon should
take his "lady" friend somewhere more private. (Wink, wink.)
• Mammon gives Lungs/Face a big cash tip and runs off with
Doll to get nasty.

12. Commentary on Act 4, scene 1
• This scene with Mammon wooing Doll in alchemical
language is very funny. Face ushers them into a private
room so they can complete their transaction. Mammon
swears Doll
“shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold” (line 28).
Even more telling than the sexual innuendo of this
conversation is Mammon’s illusion that he is
“the lord of the philosopher’s stone” (line 121)
and he proclaims Doll
“the lady” (line 122).

13. Commentary Act 4 Scene 1
He claims that he is
“the master of the mastery” (line 124),
implying that Subtle is but his servant. When Doll
worries they could go to prison for such practices,
he blusters that they will have so much money they
can live
“In a free state” (line 157).
Mammon is obviously poised for a fall. Face, as I am
told, is a pimp, and he seems to be running a side
game with Doll besides the main swindle of
Mammon’s goods and money

14. The End