The Alchemist Themes

Ben Jonson’s play The Alchemist centers on the practice of alchemy, an ancient form of natural philosophy and early type of chemistry that sought to create the philosopher’s stone, a legendary alchemical substance that could transform base metals like lead and mercury into gold and silver. The philosopher’s stone was also thought to produce the elixir of life, which promised to give whoever consumed it immortal life. Alchemy was considered a legitimate form of…

Ben Jonson wrote The Alchemist in 1610, less than 100 years after the Protestant Reformation, a movement in Western Christianity that sought to challenge the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1537, mere decades before Jonson’s birth in 1572, King Henry VIII officially separated from the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England, a type of Protestantism that rejected papal authority. In the years following the Protestant Reformation and the creation…

Deception and gullibility are the very foundation of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. The play is based on two conmen, Face and Subtle, who use deception to “cozen,” or trick, gullible Londoners into believing they are experts of alchemy in possession of the philosopher’s stone. The very practice of alchemy itself connotes deception and gullibility. Alchemy was viewed as a legitimate branch of science in Jonson’s day; however, the field of alchemy was…