The Alchemist: Character Mind Map & Summary
Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist made simple: the three con artists, the fools they cheat, what each victim wants, an act-by-act summary and the facts that come up in UGC NET.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the character’s role, disguise, what they want and how they end.
Face (Jeremy the Butler)
Lovewit’s butler, left in charge of his master’s London house while Lovewit escapes the plague. He lets in Subtle and Doll and runs the con. He plays “Captain Face”, who brings in the customers, and “Lungs” (Ulen Spiegel), Subtle’s sooty assistant. When his master returns, he shaves, becomes plain Jeremy again, and wins Lovewit’s forgiveness.
My part a little fell in this last scene, / Yet ’twas decorum.Fate: forgiven, and speaks the epilogue
🧪 Partners in Crime
The “venture tripartite”SubtleThe fake alchemist
Role: A con man who poses as a learned alchemist, astrologer and fortune-teller, dazzling the gulls with alchemical jargon and promising the philosopher’s stone.
Key moment: The play opens with him and Face in a furious quarrel over who is the boss.
Thy worst. I fart at thee.Flees over the back wall with nothing
Doll CommonProstitute · the peacekeeper
Role: The third partner, who keeps Subtle and Face from destroying their “republic”.
Disguises: The Queen of Fairy for Dapper, and a learned, mad noble lady for Mammon.
Will you undo yourselves with civil war?Flees with Subtle, empty-handed
🪙 The Gulls (Victims)
Each one’s greedSir Epicure MammonGreedy, lustful knight
Wants: The philosopher’s stone, and with it endless gold, youth and luxury. His fantasies of wealth and pleasure are the comic highlight of the play.
Key moment: Caught flirting with Doll, he “ruins” the experiment: the furnace explodes.
I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed: / Down is too hard.Loses all his goods
DapperLawyer’s clerk
Wants: A “familiar” spirit to help him win at gambling.
Key moment: Told he is the nephew of the Queen of Fairy; blindfolded, gagged with gingerbread and locked in the privy for hours.
Robbed and fooledAbel DruggerTobacco seller
Wants: Astrological advice on how to lay out his new shop for good luck.
Key moment: Brings the rich widow Dame Pliant to the house, hoping to marry her himself.
Loses money and the widowKastrilThe “angry boy” from the country
Wants: To learn the fashionable art of quarrelling like a London gallant, and to marry off his sister.
Happy: his sister marries LovewitDame PliantKastril’s sister · rich young widow
Role: Aged 19, easily led (as her name suggests). Everyone schemes to marry her for her money.
Marries Lovewit✝️ The Puritans
Anabaptists from AmsterdamTribulation WholesomeAnabaptist pastor
Wants: Gold from the stone to fund his sect, and he quickly finds religious excuses for bending his principles.
Satire: Jonson’s attack on Puritan hypocrisy.
Loses the brethren’s goodsAnaniasZealous deacon
Role: A hot-tempered hardliner who objects even to words that sound “heathen” or Catholic.
Cheated and chased off🔍 The Outsiders
The sceptic & the masterPertinax SurlyMammon’s sceptical friend · gambler
Role: The only visitor who sees through the fraud. He comes back disguised as a Spanish Don to expose the tricksters.
Irony: Though honest (for once), he fails. Nobody believes him, and he loses Dame Pliant to Lovewit.
Right but defeatedLovewitOwner of the house · Face’s master
Role: Returns unexpectedly in Act 5. Instead of punishing Face, he enjoys the joke, keeps the stolen goods and marries the rich widow.
…were very ungrateful, if he would not be / A little indulgent to that servant’s wit.Wins: goods + a rich wife
Memory Hook: The Venture Tripartite
The con team is a three-part business partnership. Remember each partner’s job.
The Ending: Who Wins, Who Loses
Jonson’s surprise: the cleverest wins, not the most virtuous.
Act-by-Act Summary
The whole plot in five quick stops.
Act 1The Con Begins
- Plague has emptied London; Lovewit has left his house to his butler, Face.
- Subtle and Face quarrel until Doll restores peace.
- First customers: Dapper wants a gambling spirit; Drugger wants a lucky shop.
Act 2Mammon & the Stone
- Sir Epicure Mammon arrives with the sceptical Surly, dreaming of what the philosopher’s stone will buy him.
- Ananias comes for the Puritans; Drugger mentions the rich widow, Dame Pliant.
Act 3More Victims
- Tribulation Wholesome and Ananias are drawn in further.
- Kastril arrives to learn quarrelling; Dapper is gagged and locked in the privy.
Act 4Things Fall Apart
- Surly, disguised as a Spanish Don, courts Dame Pliant and exposes the plot.
- Mammon flirts with Doll and the furnace “explodes”.
- Just as the tricksters win back control, Lovewit comes home.
Act 5The Master Returns
- Face becomes Jeremy again and wins over Lovewit.
- Subtle and Doll run off; the gulls are turned away.
- Lovewit marries Dame Pliant, and Face speaks the epilogue.
Must-Know Exam Facts
The details that keep coming up in UGC NET, SET and PGT papers.
Date & Publication
First performed in 1610 by the King’s Men. Printed in quarto in 1612 and in Jonson’s Folio Works (1616).
Setting & the Unities
Lovewit’s house in Blackfriars, London, during the plague of 1610. Jonson follows the classical unities: one place, one day, one action, with the play’s time roughly matching the time on stage.
Genre
A city comedy and comedy of humours: each gull is driven by one ruling passion, mainly greed and lust. Written mostly in blank verse.
The Acrostic Argument
The verse “Argument” at the start is an acrostic: the first letters of its lines spell out THE ALCHEMIST.
Coleridge’s Praise
Coleridge named it one of the three most perfect plots ever planned, with Oedipus Tyrannus and Fielding’s Tom Jones.
Jonson’s Other Works
Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone (1606), Epicoene (1609), Bartholomew Fair (1614). He was Shakespeare’s rival and friend, and later the leader of the “Tribe of Ben”.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
