ABSTRACT
Setting the play within the liberty has implications for the action of the comedy. Although Face is normally part of the Lovewit household, he finds himself at liberty to be his own master when the plague drives his employer out of town. With Subtle and Dol, also masterless and thus free to act as they choose, Face seizes the opportunity to follow his own ambitions without restraint, and signs a contract with his rogue-companions to form their own anarchic 'republic' (1.1.110), where they can be Sovereign, General, and Fairy Queen in a 'venture tripartite' (135) to dupe all comers. The licence to create a new world of wealth and exceptional power draws Mammon into the liberty as well: his private philanthropic fantasy eventually expands into a dream of 'a free state' of sensual excess, unhindered by king or country (4.1.147-69). The Anabaptists dream of another Munster Rising in London itself, with gold enough to buy military support, destroy the popish heretics, restore the silenced saints, and put the brethren in control of England-an ominous prevision of the Interregnum. Dapper aspires to the idle life of gentleman;
3 70 The Alchemist
Drugger wants instant business success; Kastril wants to subdue his country neighbours with his urban prowess as a duelling Angry Boy. What they all have in common is the desire for easy attainment and absolute licence, freedom from the laws of necessity or of nature, even of fate.
