Everyman

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Everyman

• A Morality Play

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Everyman

• Written around 1485
• French church had declared itself independent
  from papal authority.
• Gutenberg Bible had been printed.
• Literate commoners had a better understanding of
  church doctrine.
• Moral corruption and abuses of power were the
  subject of debate within the Catholic church.
• Chaucer had satirized such in the portraits of
  the Monk, Summoner, Pardoner and Friar.

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Everyman

• Morality Play
• Late medieval genre
• Encouraged by the church and civil authorities
  because they taught social and moral values
  through amusing dramatic actions.
• Morality characters are allegorical plots
  action must be interpreted as teaching something
  about the human condition.
• Often dramatize mans struggle to avoid vice and
  seek virtue.

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Everyman

• Allegory
• Form of extended metaphor in which objects and
  persons within a narrative are equated with
  meanings that lie outside the narrative itself.
• Two levels of meaning
• Literal
• What the figures do in the narrative
• Symbolic
• What the figures stand for, outside the narrative

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Everyman

• Allegory
• May involve personification of
• Abstract qualities (Truth, Beauty)
• An event (Death)
• Another sort of abstraction (Una in Spensers
  Faerie Queene the one True Church)
• Historical personage (Piers Plowman Christ)
• Characters, events, and setting may be historical
  or fictitious.

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Everyman

• Allegory
• Test is that characters, etc., must represent
  meanings independent of the action described in
  the surface story.

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Everyman

• Allegory
• On the surface
• Everyman is about a man who sets out on a journey
  and the people he meets.
• Book I of the Faerie Queene is about a knight
  killing a dragon and rescuing a princess.

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Everyman

• Allegory
• On the allegorical level both stories concern the
  duties of a Christian and the way to achieve
  salvation.

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Everyman

• Allegory
• Frequently (but not always) concerned with
  matters of great importance.
• Life and death
• Damnation and salvation
• Social or personal morality and immorality
• Also used for satiric purposes.

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Everyman

• Allegory is used throughout the play
• The names of characters
• Sins and bonds that tie Good Deeds to the ground
• Confession is a river as well as a Holy Man
• Contrition is a garment
• Death is a literal hole in the ground

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Everyman

• Reflects views of the Medieval Church
• Life is a struggle between good and evil.
• Salvation is the central goal of life.
• Things of this world are fleeting and
  insignificant.
• The Church is a necessary guide to salvation.

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Everyman

• Key question the playwright addresses
• What must a man do to be saved?

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Everyman

• Characters
• Everyman
• God
• Death
• Allegorical representations of the worldly things
  and spiritual attributes which will affect his
  salvation

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Everyman

• The playwright intends the central character
  (Everyman) to represent every human being
• Death is a universal human experience.

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Everyman

• Death appears unexpectedly in Everyman
• Suggests that one should always be prepared at
  any time to die.
• Everyman is shocked when Death arrives.
• He is not prepared for his reckoning with God.

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Everyman

• In time of need, he is deserted by
• His casual companions
• His kinsmen
• His wealth
• He can take none of these things with him to the
  grave

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Everyman

• Everyman can only take with him what he has
  given his Good Deeds.
• However, his Good Deeds are sick and weakly.
• His sins have rendered her too weak to stand
• He has neglected Good Deeds
• Has placed too much emphasis on things such as
  Fellowship and Goods.

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Everyman

• Goods
• Immobilized because the chests and bags of gold
  are lying upon him
• Suggests that earthly possessions weigh one down
  in the quest for salvation.
• If Everyman had loved Goods less/more moderately
  and had given some to the poor, he would not be
  weighted down by them now.

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Everyman

• Recurring point is made that man can take nothing
  with him from this world that he has received,
  only what he has given.
• Once Everyman goes through the various offices of
  the Church, his Good Deeds can rise and speak for
  him.
• Having been redeemed, Everyman and his Good Deeds
  descend into the grave.

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Everyman

• Doctor comes to stage to reiterate the moral of
  the story
• For, after death, amends man no man make.