Please discuss The Alchemist by Ben Johson as an allegory.How is The Alchemist by Ben Jonson an allegory?

A discussion of Ben Jonson's The
Alchemist as an allegory is, in truth, a little difficult. The reason why
this is so is that The Alchemist is in the genre of
farce not that of allegory. However, while a work may not
be definitively an allegory, through the process of allegoresis it
may be critically read as an allegory in part or in whole.

Allegoresis is
the process by which a work that is not written as an allegory--like for example the
allegorical works The Faerie Queene and The Pilgrim's
Progress--may be critically and analytically read and understood as an
allegory or as having parts that are allegorical. An
allegory is a work (or a section, passage or line of a
work) that has universally representative characters and experience. title="Allegory: Literary Terms and Definitions. Kip Wheeler, Carson-Newman College"
href="http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_a.html">For instance, if a
folk fable that has the characters Tommy the Toad and Bobby
the Billy Goat and in which they say, "We are creatures of the wild, aren't we?" is
modified so that Tommy the Toad becomes Toad the Teacher and Bobby the Billy Goat
becomes Stubborn Student Bobby Billy and they talk about "We are creatures of rational
reason, aren't we?", then the fable about individuals has become an
allegory about all of humankind through the universality of
character and experience.

In constructing The
Alchemist, which some critics say is the most perfect play in English
literature, Ben Jonson didn't draw on old stories for his storyline and plot; he created
the story and plot himself. To do so, he used character
types, not allegorical characters. This is what classifies The
Alchemist as farce instead of allegory. Type, or
"typical," characters are standard characters or archetypal characters that everyone has
experience with and therefore can understand even though a particular type may not be
universally representative in the way allegorical characters are. For example, not
everyone is the swindler type though many people have experience of that type of person.
Another example is that not everyone is the giddy girl type though many people have
experience of that type of person. Which points out another difference between typical
characters and allegorical characters: Character types lend
themselves to humor, farce and satire while allegorical
characters are serious characters meant to be taken in
earnest.

So--this said--an allegoresis
reading of The Alchemist could interpret the
character types as universal allegorical representations portraying an underlying
earnestly serious message. Therefore in an allegoresis the characters would be The
Puritan Ananias, The Law Clerk Dapper, The Rich Young Man Kastril, and The Master
Lovwit, etc., and the themes might be woven together to teach a serious lesson, perhaps
about Morality and Order in a Disordered world that requires vigilance against
Victimization through right-minded Religion. Furthermore, in allgoresis, the satire that
Jonson writes would undergird the delivery of the earnestly serious
theme.