Summary
As everyone prepares for the puppet show, Overdo plans to reveal his true identity to the fair-goers.
Meanwhile, Quarlous dons an outfit that makes him look like Trouble-All, and Dame Purecraft confesses her love for him. Quarlous gives up his pursuit of Grace Welborn, and she leaves with Winwife. Dame Purecraft rejects Zeal-of-the-Land Busy as a hypocrite.
As Quarlous leaves with Dame Purecraft, he is stopped by Overdo, as Overdo believes him to be Trouble-All and wants to reveal his true identity and thank him for his help. Quarlous accepts Overdo's reward for Trouble-All.
Littlewit arrives at the puppet show, but is told he must pay full price. He explains that he wrote the show, but does not want others knowing until he sees if the show is well-received.
Bartholomew Cokes confesses to Littlewit that he has lost everything at the fair including his money, his friends, and his clothes.
Everyone arrives for the puppet show, including Win Littlewit and Mistress Overdo, who are both drunk and dressed flamboyantly. The show begins with a brawl between the puppets and everyone is impressed. Zeal-of-the-Land Busy arrives to preach against the performance, and winds up in an argument with a puppet.
Overdo explains to everyone his true identity and recounts all the debauched behavior he has seen at the fair. Trouble-All arrives with Ursla, who explains that Quarlous stole Trouble-All's clothing. Just as Overdo is about to pass judgment on everyone, Mistress Overdo throws up on her husband. Quarlous then reminds Overdo of all the crimes he witness and failed to prevent. He suggests that Overdo invite them all over for dinner to acknowledge his shared fallibility. Overdo accepts.
Analysis
In the final act of the play, the play reaches its climax in the form of the puppet show presented by Littlewit. After following a series of complicated and chaotic plots for four acts, the audience finally sees the majority of characters together in one place. The puppet show draws everyone's attention, and as such functions in much the same way that other plays-within-a-play do on the early modern English stage.
Traditionally – and especially in Renaissance tragedies – when a play or performance appears on stage, it offers some commentary on the characters, conflicts, and events of the play that contains it. The most famous example of this meta-theatrical convention is Shakespeare's Hamlet, where Prince Hamlet uses a play to reveal his knowledge that his uncle killed his father.
In Bartholomew Fair, the performance at hand is not a play but a puppet show. This detail is significant because it comments on the absurdity of the events that have taken place so far at the fair. When Zeal-of-the-Land Busy engages in a debate with one of the puppets, he accuses them of sin for blurring the line between male and female. It is only when the puppet lifts up its skirt to reveal it is genderless that Busy admits defeat. This exchange is significant because it is fundamentally preposterous; that it is a puppet who bests the hypocritical Busy emphasizes the play's upside-down, chaotic, and ridiculous nature in which its own characters delight at the fair.
Despite the continued chaos of the play's climax, the final act does, to some degree, re-establish a sense of order as the play concludes: Justice Overdo reveals his true identity, Busy announces that he is a changed man, Dame Purecraft and Grace Welborn are both married (though not to their original suitors), Littlewit and his wife are reunited, and everyone congregates at the home of the Overdos for dinner. This ending showcases the notion that Bartholomew Fair is a respite from the otherwise orderliness of society: with this day at the fair winding down, characters must return to a state of relative stability.
However, that the pre-fair status quo is not exactly recycled at the end of the play is significant, as it shows how the events of the fair have influenced its participants and their perception of their fellow Londoners. After Busy is bested by the puppet, he admits his own hypocrisy and claims to be changed forever. Likewise, Overdo concedes to having the group over for dinner as a type of penance for his own misdeeds and judgments against them. Thus, while Bartholomew Fair ends with a general sense of resolution, it attributes that resolution to the chaotic, inverted, and fun antics that have occurred throughout the play.
