Character Analysis
Mammon, Or Madman?
Mammon is hands down the most outrageous character in this entire play. (When The Alchemist is staged, Mammon is always a crowd favorite.) He thinks Subtle is a wise "Doctor" and an alchemist and shells out a ton of dough so Subtle will produce the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life.
Obviously, our boy Mammon is terminally gullible. He's also got serious delusions of grandeur. Did you notice how he's always telling wild stories about what he's going to do when he gets his hands on the stone and the elixir?
Because he definitely is:
MAM. I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft;
Down is too hard: and then, mine oval room
Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took
From Elephantis, and dull Aretine
But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses
Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse
And multiply the figures, as I walk
Naked between my succubæ.
[…]
Where I spy
A wealthy citizen, or [a] rich lawyer,
Have a sublim'd pure wife, unto that fellow
I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. (2.2.57-73)
Yup. Mammon wants to a) pimp out the inside of his house with expensive art and a bunch of mirrors so he can walk around naked and admire himself and b) sleep with a bunch of other guys' wives.
If I Were A Rich Man…
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Mammon's got quite a to-do list so, let's check it out:
- Get a bunch of wives and concubines so he can have sex approximately fifty times a night.
- Assemble an entourage of admirers and hangers-on who will follow him around and tell him how awesome he is...while they fan him with ostrich feathers.
- Dine on crazy-expensive food with exotic sounding names.
- Buy all the swankiest clothes and most expensive kicks he can get his hands on.
- Cure people of the plague and venereal diseases.
- Make old people young again.
We could go on, but you get the idea.
Of all the characters in The Alchemist, Mammon clearly has the most extravagant desires. He also seems to be the most gullible. When his best bud (Surly) tries to tell him over and over and over again that he's getting duped by Subtle, Mammon refuses to listen, even when the evidence seems to be right before his eyes.
What's that all about? Well, if you ask us, it seems like Mammon's an exaggerated example of how all human beings have the capacity for self-delusion. In other words, we often see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe, even when all the evidence points to the contrary. (Sigh. We humans are kind of dumb.)
Even so, a lot of audiences and literary critics consider this guy to be the greatest example of Ben Jonson's creative imagination. As Robert C. Evans reminds us, Mammon is thought of as "the best non-Shakespearean comic figure in English drama." (Source)
That's insanely high praise. We're just glad the actual Mammon isn't around to hear it, though, because his head would swell like a watermelon.