Character Analysis
No Damsel In Distress
There's no way to sugarcoat this: Doll's a prostitute and a con artist. Much like the dudes she runs with, she's no angel. She's from the mean streets of London—think of her as the great-great grandma of Oliver Twist's Nancy. Except, unlike Nancy, Doll Common spends less time defending orphans and more time scamming horny dudes out of their paycheck.
Just like Shakespeare's famous character Doll Tearsheet, her name suggests that she has sex with a ton of men. Basically, her name suggests that she's the doll or plaything for every commoner (a.k.a. lower class dude) in the Blackfriars neighborhood.
But again: don't let that doll comparison fool you. If she's like any doll we know of, she's a bit like the Bride from Bride of Chucky—a bodacious, canny doll who has no qualms about wreaking some serious havoc.
(By the way, her name is spelled "Dol" with just one "l" in some editions of the play so don't worry out if your copy of The Alchemist spells her name differently than ours. Folks weren't exactly picky about spelling back in the 16th and 17th Centuries—not even dudes like Ben Jonson and Will Shakespeare.)
But let's get back to our girl.
She's a partner in crime with her pals Subtle and Face. On the one hand, Doll's an unruly and rebellious figure, just like her cronies. On the other hand, our girl's wicked smart and knows how to keep her cool when Subtle and Butler start fighting like cats and dogs. She even calms them down:
"Will you undo yourselves with civil war?" (1.1.82)
Most of all, Doll's crafty and good at thinking on her feet. Literary critic Anne Barton calls her a "brilliant actress" because she literally plays a bunch of different roles over the course of the play—she pretends to be the Fairy Queen with Dapper and a mad lady scholar with Mammon. [Source: Ben Jonson: Dramatist, 1984]
Yeah, the whole mad lady scholar bit is especially impressive. Check it out:
DOL. For after Alexander's death—
MAM. Good lady—
DOL. That Perdiccas and Antigonus were slain,
The two that stood, Seleuc' and Ptolomy—
MAM. Madam—
DOL. Make up the two legs, and the fourth beast,
That was Gog-north and Egypt-south: which after
Was call'd Gog-iron-leg and South-iron-leg—
MAM. Lady—
DOL. And then Gog-horned. So was Egypt, too:
Then Egypt-clay-leg, and Gog-clay-leg—
MAM. Sweet madam— (4.5.1-13)
Poor Mammon is totally out of his depth, and Doll has the whole raving religious lunatic thing down pat.
This is a pretty big deal, because Jonson uses Doll as a way to underline the fact that being a con artist is a whole lot like being a stage actor. (Check out "Themes: Art and Culture" if you want to think about this some more.)