Moral Anxiety and National Health in English Plague Period: The Excessive Carnival in The Alchemist

At the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, political oppression and financial crisis made different classes of English people tired of her rule, and the heavy tax burden made the excess desire for money rampant in English society. The plague that broke out between the late 16th and early 17th centuries became the last straw that broke the apparent harmony and balance of England. The plague has its own “unique advantage” in causing social chaos, riots and legal imbalance. Ben Jonson, who has a profound insight into social changes, is clearly sensitive to the chaos of social order and lack of authority caused by the plague. In The Alchemist, he creates a “carnival world” with the plague as the background. This carnivalized and grotesque urban space is filled with people who are extremely greedy and overly desirous. Their desire for money infects everyone, and interpersonal relationships are distorted and alienated into money relationships. Through the play’s satire on human nature, Ben Jonson expresses his longing for the return of sane living and his hope for the restoration of the rule of law and moral health in England, and moreover hints at his expectation of the reign of the newly installed King James I of England.