Chapter The Alchemist Summaries and Commentary of The Alchemist - Study Guide by Ben Jonson

When this is concluded Face enters with the news that Drugger has returned with the Spanish costume which Lovewit shall now wear. Drugger is then dispatched to find a parson so that the marriage may take place. Subtle is still labouring under the illusion that the marriage is to be between Dame Pliant and Face, the original scheme between the two. It transpires that he has told Dol of this plan and they themselves conspire to trick Face who has gone "direct/ Against our articles" (V.iv.71-72). "To deceive him," says Subtle, "Is no deceit, but justice, that would break/ such an inextricable tie as ours was" (V.iv.103- 104). Again we see the pretensions of grandeur of these criminals, so skilled in deception that, with their language, they even conceal the true nature of their enterprise from themselves. In revenge, they plan to run off with the loot, little realising that their 'republic' already lies in ruins.

When Face returns, he checks that they have packed all the goods before revealing that he too has plotted against their union. Lovewit he tells them has forgiven him and it shall be him who shall keep the loot thus determining the "indenture tripartite", the end of their less than happy union. The only favour he can now do them is to help them over the wall to escape the officers who Mammon and the rest of the gulls have gone to fetch. From being Subtle's "precious king", Face is now described as "a precious fiend" (V.iv.138) and that is just about the last epithet Subtle gets to apply to Face as they are interrupted by officers knocking on the door. So the two leave just as they arrived, with nothing, just as Subtle's specious alchemical processes started with base metals, transmuted in the minds of his gulls into gold and then exploded to leave nothing but the base metals.

Act 5. Scene 5

In this final scene, Lovewit reveals that he too has enough cunning to be a partner with Face. He appears on stage in the Spanish costume having married Dame Pliant whilst outside, the officers, accompanied by Mammon and Surly, bang on the door demanding entrance. Lovewit holds them off long enough to remove the Spanish garb before allowing them, along with the Anabaptists and Kastril, entrance. Telling them that he has been away and that his butler had rented the house to the thieving Doctor and Captain, he invites them to search the house. Whilst Kastril runs to find his sister to "thump her" Lovewit tells Surly of how, thanks to the ungracious behaviour of the 'Spanish Count' who had made all sorts of advances and then failed to follow them up, Dame Pliant has married him. Surly curses that "foolish vice of honesty" (V.v.84) thus revealing that his usual habit is perhaps to be less than honest. He, like the rest, is motivated by greed, his only virtue being his cynicism.

On finding his goods in the cellar, Mammon returns, somewhat placated by the thought that at least he shall get them back. Lovewit however, cleverly puts paid to these hopes, stating that since he has no proof that the articles belong to Mammon he shall not return them without a "formal writ of court" saying that he had been "gull'd of them". Of course Mammon's pride will not allow him to publicly display his foolishness and he says "I'll rather lose them" (V.v.71). Just as his greed lost him the goods, another deadly sin, pride, means that he shan't get them back. His dreams of a new world shattered he vows to mount a "turnip cart, and preach" the end of this one.

The same fate befalls the Anabaptists and Drugger is also disposed of when told that he took too long washing his face and so lost the chance of marrying Dame Pliant.

This leaves only Kastril to take care of who is at first appalled that his sister could have married below a knight. Lovewit, however, soon wins his confidence with an invitation to quarrel and smoke tobacco. The naive Kastril's opinion is thus quickly changed for he takes Lovewit to be a worldly man of the sort that he aspires to be himself. He is soon complimenting Lovewit who returns the favour calling Kastril "brother boy".

All gulls then are dealt with and thanks to Face Lovewit has gained Mammon's goods, Kastril's sister as well as a dowry for Dame Pliant. "I will be ruled by thee in anything, Jeremy" (V.v.143) says Lovewit, cementing the final inversion of the play, master ruled by butler.