The Alchemist: Too Cruel to Be a Comedy? Isabella Welch 11th Grade

It does not seem a viable course of action to try to apply our modern developed ethics to a 16th Century mindset such as that which yielded Jonson's The Alchemist. For example, as a civilisation would all at the very least, feel uncomfortable taking Kastril’s lighthearted oaths to violently ‘touse,’ his sister as a mere comedic off-hand comment. It is safe to say that such themes of abuse are no longer a valid market for 21st Century comedic material. As The Alchemist contains material so blatantly ethically problematic such as Mammon’s genuine desire to have other men’s wives as his ‘cuckholds,’ or Dol being forced to ‘suckle,’ men at Face’s behest, the matter appears very black and white. If produced in the 21st Century, it would contain unacceptable themes.

The Alchemist could be easily considered an amoral work in any period. From the offset, anyone watching The Alchemist would come expecting to witness despicable cruelty. Jonson writes that his characters are ‘diseased,’ fully admitting them to be morally reprehensible. Furthermore, Jonson himself insists that the reader find their own message within it in the Prologue, hoping the ‘doers,’ shall recognise their own ‘natural follies,’ rather than make any attempt himself to...