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Muhammad Rustam
Bachelor of Business Administration (Virtual University), Karachi, Pakistan
Email: rustam_5656@gmail.com
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to analyze Jonson’s ability to create characters that look real and
convincing. The characters of The Alchemist are therefore analyzed in detail with respect to
being the caricatures, characteristics, their nature, their comparison with the characters of
Shakespeare, as conspirators, and other features they display. The paper further analyses the
governing vice of the characters in The Alchemist which is very much the same, but also
highlights the variety in the characterization. Jonson casts his net over society widely enough to
include a nobleman, a countryman, a lawyer’s clerk, two Puritans, a tobacconist, a butler, a
respectable householder, and a gamester. Their faults include greed and lust, excess, triviality,
thick-headedness, false ambition, credulity, feeble submissiveness, hypocrisy, double-think,
extortion, and mere silliness. Thus the play offers a rich collection of satirical portraits, depicting
at the same time a whole society, ruthlessly acquisitive. The paper concludes that as Jonson’s
comic characterization remains among the greatest achievements of the English drama, because
of its clearness, its richness of humor, and its dramatic veracity, he is pre-eminent in that type of
comedy in which everything else is subordinated to the dramatic unfolding of character.
Introduction:
Jonson’s wide and penetrating observation of manners, whether of the city or of court, is
one of his obvious merits, as is his ingenious and systematic construction of plots. But the great
excellence of both his tragedies and his comedies is their delineation of character. This is
conditioned less than in other Elizabethan dramatists by the story, but more by classical models
and rules. It is also conditioned by his method of making each person the illustration of one trait
or humor, and by his disposition to substitute description for drama, and satire for a fact, and to
exaggerate his satire into farce (Ahmed, 2021a).
Again, each person is set forth with a distinctness of detail which, while aiding
visualization, often distracts from the interest of a situation. Akin to this defect is Jonson’s over-
use of the long monologue after the fashion of the classical models, and his thoroughness which
refuses to let go person, speech, or situation until he or she is absolutely exhausted. Yet, in spite
of these limitations, Jonson’s comic characterization remains among the greatest achievements of
1
Corresponding author
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Electronic Research Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Volume 4 (2021)
ISSN: 2652-7782. http://erjbehaviouralsciences.com/
the English drama, because of its clearness, its richness of humor, and its dramatic veracity. He is
pre-eminent in that type of comedy in which everything else is subordinated to the dramatic
unfolding of character.
Characters as caricatures:
Jonson was, moreover, deceiving himself when he thought that he had depicted real men
in his plays. He noticed only obvious individual peculiarities or the violent actions of exceptional
persons. He showed an almost total disregard of fundamental feelings common to mankind, and
his ignorance of love. He thus never got near to nature in the classical meaning of the word. To
find in his plays a character who is merely a man or a woman is almost impossible. In his later
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ISSN: 2652-7782. http://erjbehaviouralsciences.com/
comedies, Jonson’s satirical attitude becomes stronger. Several characters in these plays are
caricatures (Ahmed, 2021a).
The portraits exaggerate the eccentricity and extravagance of the characters depicted.
Shakespeare’s characters are more complex and their motives are more varied so that they are
capable of surprising us. They are, in this sense, more like real people. Jonson’s characters, on
the other hand, are not portraits but caricatures. They are simplified and exaggerated, but just for
this reason they are clearly recognizable and alienated from our sympathy (Arnold, 1965). For
instance, we feel little sympathy for the characters in The Alchemist because we know from the
start that they are not human. The characters in this play are both super-human and sub-human.
They are sup-human in the extent and intensity of their passion, and they are sub-human in its
singleness and limitation, and in the absence of any redeeming qualities (Akhtar, 2019).
2
Jeremy or Face
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up a laboratory in Lovewit’s house, giving out that an alchemist has started work upon the
production of the philosopher’s stone which can make its possessors fabulously rich (Arnold,
1965).
3
that is, eating houses
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This pattern of cunningly enlarged aspiration, developed initially with Dapper and
Drugger, repeats itself with all except one of Subtle’s other customers (Amir and Aurangzeb,
2020).
Kastril is clearly distinguishable from all the other characters. He is a rustic gentleman, a
gentleman who has newly come to London (Ahmed, 2021b). He is hardly one-and-twenty. He
has full control over his widowed sister. He is a man of some fifteen hundred pounds a year. He
has come to London in order to learn how to quarrel and how to live by his wits. Ultimately he
would go back to the country and die there.
This idiot from the countryside wants to be translated into a fashionable swaggerer and a
dangerous duelist. He has already heard some of the speeches of the angry boys in the city, and
he has been them smoking tobacco. In fact, he has already started smoking tobacco, and he
would now like to receive lessons in quarreling from Subtle. Although he is not governed by a
passion for money, he does desire status. The money he has already got, though not over-much.
4
Actually a bogus one
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Electronic Research Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Volume 4 (2021)
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But he is not crazy after money. All that he now aims at is sophistication and his sister’s
marriage to a Knight (Arnold, 1965).
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Conclusion:
i. Jonson endowed each of his characters with some particular whim or affectation,
some ludicrous exaggeration of manner, speech, or dress; and he pushed forward
this single odd trait to such an extent that all others might be lost sight of.
ii. The fixed, narrow limits of Jonson’s characterization were opposed to the practice
of contemporary dramatists who gave their characters full play, developing them
spaciously and endowing them with complexity and the faculty of growth.
iii. While portraying the characters, Jonson noticed only obvious individual
peculiarities or the violent actions of exceptional persons. He showed an almost
total disregard of fundamental feelings common to mankind, and his ignorance of
love. He thus never got near to nature in the classical meaning of the word.
iv. Almost all characters in The Alchemist are possessed by one and the same humor,
which is an obsessive desire for money, though individual characters like
mammon have certain other humor or interests also.
v. Subtle, Face and Dol are distinguished from the dupes by their skill, ingenuity,
wit, and freedom from illusion, though they too are driven by the same desire for
wealth. Kastril and Surly are also clearly distinguishable from all the other
characters. Therefore, although the governing vice of the characters in The
Alchemist is very much the same, the variety in the characterization has to be
recognized.
vi. One limitation of The Alchemist as a comedy of humor is the lack of development
in the characters.
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