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Everyman
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY
Everyman Play
The playwright of this play is anonymous. It was first published in England in the sixteenth century. It is also known as a morality play. The very interesting thing is that the title of the play is itself the major character of the play. This play tells the detailed preparation of a character, Everyman, for God's judgment. Actually, such morality plays were produced to give the message to a reader rather than to perform on the stage.
The play Everyman uses abstract characters like Everyman, Good Deeds, Sin, Goods, and so on. Many critics hold the view that the mediaeval period's morality plays like Everyman influenced the Elizabethan dramatists. It seems to be true for Elizabethan dramatists like Christopher Marlow, who produces the play Dr. Faustus''s major character, Dr. Faustus, who sells his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles.
MAIN PLOT
Everyman Play
At the beginning of the play, the Messenger addresses the audience by saying:
"I pray you all give your audience and hear this matter with reverence.
By figure, a moral play
The summoning of Everyman called it "
"Ye, think sin in the beginning full sweet,
which is the end that causes the soul to weep.
Actually, the above-spoken line may hint that the messenger is the spokesman of the religion teacher: Now, the Messenger departs from the play. Then God, Death, and Everyman speak, respectively.
After the messenger, God appears on the stage and tells the audience that every man has forgotten him. So he is very angry with him and wants to give him punishment. Then God calls death to search every man. In the eyes of God, every man was sinful.
Death begins searching for Everyman and finds him. Every man should accompany him because it was God's command. But Everyman is afraid of Death's proposal, and he refuses it. But death forces him to go with him. Then Everyman says that he will go with him along with his companion. So, he requests that Death give him a little time to search for his friends for the final judgment. After that, Everyman leaves Death and goes to search for a companion.
At first, Everyman goes to visit Fellowship and requests that he go with him. To persuade his friend, Everyman says that he has spent several years with him. At first, his friend agrees to go with him, but when he knows the destination, he immediately rejects it. Every man now feels sad and thinks of visiting his blood relatives.
Then he asks for help from his relatives: cousins and kindred. Both accept at first to go with him, but later, they reject his proposal when they know the final destination. Here, too, he is not helped.
After that, he goes to Goods to request that she go with him. To persuade Goods, he says that, for her sake, he has committed various sins and crimes.
But Goods straightaway refuses his proposal, saying that her place is Earth and her aim is to lure the human being to sin. Everyman now realises that he trusted in the wrong things, and on Earth, there are not any of his true friends or relatives.
After getting shocked by the previous three (his friends, his relatives, and his own property), he asks for help from Good Deeds. When she hears his proposal, she falls on his legs, and she says that she cannot help him because she can only help those people who are pious, but he has committed excessive sin. When he insists on her going with him, she gives him suggestions to meet Knowledge, who may help him.
Then he goes to meet knowledge, but knowledge also takes him to meet confession. When he visits confession, he realises all his past sins. So, confession helps him gain knowledge of his past sins. After knowing his previous sin, he repents and laments too much. In this play, confession gives him salvation (in Catholicism, a sinful man can be purged when he laments for his previous sin).
When his sinful soul is purified from his confession of past sin, good deeds appear to him and reveal their help. After that, he has several companions to accompany him:
a) Discretion
b) Strength
c) Beauty
d) Five Wits
e) Knowledge
Now every man dies and receives proper funeral rites from the priest (the priest stands for God's representative). Now his journey (his soul) stands for final judgment. But his companions start leaving him. Among his companions, Beauty leaves him first. (Beauty means his physical charm and appearance.) After that, strength, discretion, and five wits, respectively, leave him. Then, finally, knowledge also departs from him.
All companions leave him, but Good Deeds does not leave and remains with him until his final judgement before God. She is the only person who can request that God make him a member of heaven.
Then, at the end of the play, the doctor (theologist) appearing on the stage reminds the audience that all men (souls) have to move on the same journey, and only good deeds can help to get a final judgement or God's grace.
Note: The concept of life after death is expressed in the play. After Everyman's death, his soul starts making the journey with his several companions for the final judgement, but all his companions leave him before reaching his destination, but it is the good deeds who remain till his destination. Symbolically, good deeds mean good work, religion, pious habits, etc., which can help human beings get God's grace. So, obviously, in Christianity, lamenting for past sin means getting salvation for the soul. In the play, Everyman laments for his sin. Therefore, he may get God's grace.
In Brief:
Everyman requests respectively:
a) Kindred and Cousin
b) Goods
c) Good Deeds
d) Knowledge
e) Confession
Who are ready to go with him?
At first a) Confession
Then b) Discretion
c) Beauty
d) Strength
e) Five Wits
Who left him first?
Answer: Beauty
Morality Play
▪︎ Developed in the mediaeval age. specifically in the late 14th century.
▪︎ Unlike miracle play, morality play gives the doctrine of Catholicism without illustrating anything from the Bible, i.e., Christ's life or saints.
▪︎ Describes everyday people facing the problem of materialism:
▪︎ Its great feature is an allegory.
▪︎ Didactic in purpose
▪︎ It aims to reform society.
▪︎ It uses abstract characters like death, confession, etc.
▪︎ The quest for salvation is its theme.
▪︎ It gives the doctrine of life after death. While doing this, it emphasises the soul over the body. Such plays treat the body as transitory and perishable, while they present the soul as immortal.
▪︎ According to many critics, such dramas are better to read than to watch on stage.
▪︎ Dramatists themselves want to read their drama rather than perform on stage.
▪︎ Such dramas are very difficult to perform on stage due to their unscientific and unreal action and the use of allegorical, abstract characters.
▪︎ It gives human virtue to abstract characters such as greed, goods, good deeds, confessions, etc.
▪︎ The purpose of writing such morality is not to please the audience or reader, but rather to aim to give the moral lesson of religion.
▪︎ It often balances vice and virtue characters.
CHARACTERIZATION
Everyman Play
Everyman
He is a wealthy man. He has accumulated many properties by committing many sins. His sins are excessive in the eyes of God. So, God sends Death to fetch every man. Everyman refuses Death's proposal to go with him at first. But later on, accepting that proposal, he tells Death to give him a little time so that he can find his companion to go with him. Then he goes to ask for help from his friends and relatives, but nobody helps him. Now he knows his wrong faith in them.
Finally, when he confesses his crime, he gets many companions to go with him, but all his companions leave him before reaching his final judgement. Good deeds are the ones that remain with him at his final destination.
Fellowship (his friend)
He is the first to whom Everyman asks for his help to go with him for the final judgment. This friend and Everyman have spent much time drinking and having sexual intercourse with women. But when he proposes to go with him, he refuses.
Kindred (his relative)
After fellowship, he goes to meet Kindred and requests to go with him. Kindred, like fellowship, refuses to go with him. Kindred says that he will not help in such a situation, but rather he will provide him with a beautiful prostitute to enjoy.
Cousin (his relative)
He too declines his proposal and proposes, like Kindred, to provide him with water and food for five years instead of going with him for the last judgement of God.
Goods
(Goods stands for his material prosperity.) After that, he asks for help with goods. Now Goods refuses his proposal and says that her job is to lure the man to do sin on earth, and if he thinks outside the earth, she will leave him and go to another man to lure him to do sin.
Good deeds (Catholic faith)
Then he meets Good Deeds, but she reveals that she cannot help him because his sin is excessive. She says that she can help those who have purged their souls. Later on, she suggests that he meet her sister, Knowledge. In the course of the play, when he repents for his past crime, she asks him to help and also remains with him till his final judgement.
Knowledge
Every man visits Good Deeds for help. She suggests he meet knowledge. Then he meets knowledge, but like good deeds, knowledge also refers him to confession. Here, knowledge stands for the path of every man's redemption.
Confession (the best way to salvation)
After that, he goes to meet Confession, from whom he realises all his sins. Then he asks forgiveness and repents too much. Here, the allegorical character Confession stands for the best chance of salvation.
It is the faith of Catholicism that asserts that one who repents and remorses on earth for his past misdeeds gets salvation, and his soul will transcend towards God for the final decision. In other words, whether their soul will be tortured or not by God after their death depends on how much they were pious on earth while their soul was inside their body. So, Catholics think that this world is unreal and their bodies are perishable, but it is the soul that transcends the body after death. After that, the soul should answer God's question about being a real member of heaven. If he did well on earth, his soul would get a proper place in heaven; otherwise, it should remain in hell.
Discretion
Discretion means, in a literal sense, a split-second decision. With time, Discretion accompanies Everyman to his last destination, but he leaves him on the way. On an allegorical level, discretion means people's ability to make the correct decision. It is also obviously perishable after the death of someone.
Beauty
Like discretion, beauty also goes with every man. But the very sorry thing is that she is the one who leaves earlier than Everyman's other companions. Obviously, beauty is also an allegorical character who represents human beings' artificial beauty on earth that is also perishable from death. On another level, it also represents human beings' wrong faith in flesh and body that will fade away with death.
Strength
Like the above two, strength accompanies Everyman to his final destination and leaves him on the way. It stands for the human being's vain pride of power, energy, and strength on earth. So, in front of death, it also becomes passive.
Five Wits
Five Wits stand for human sense organs, which also leave every man. It means they will be inactive after someone's death. Nevertheless, they are for human beings and very important because they help to purge the souls of human beings on earth if they are used properly.
Messenger
He appears in the prologue and sets the background of the play. He informs the audience that on earth some people enjoy within and forget their souls' final judgement after their death, and the very sin, after death, weeps and tortures the soul. Then, having failed in the final judgement, one has to remain in hell. In a sense, Messenger informs the audience that this world is the preparation for final judgement by doing good work and earning many good deeds. Here Messenger stands for a Catholic priest who expresses that life after death is the world of reality and the existing world is momentary.
Doctor
The doctor appears at the end of the play and informs the audience to remember that all people's souls have to pass the same stages after their death as every man's soul did. He tells the audience to accumulate good deeds that will help them find God's grace and others. Beauty, Strength, and Five Wits are just selfish friends who help human beings as long as they are alive. Like Messenger, Doctor also speaks the voice of Catholicism. So, in the play, Doctor and Messenger represent the theologists of Catholicism.
Note: Last judgement means the journey of the soul towards God or heaven.
Everyman as a Morality Play
Everyman meets the above-mentioned feature of morality play. Everyman is an allegory. Basically, allegory is a device in which characters do not represent human beings but represent human beings' qualities. In the play. Many abstract characters represent secondary meaning on an allegorical level. For example, the Five Wits, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, Goods, Cousin, and Kindred, stand for the temporary attachment of human beings to such things, and the major character, Everyman, stands for all human beings and their problems of gathering goods and doing the sinful act. It gives the message that his property, relatives, beauty, etc. do not help human beings get redemption after death. It is the confession that remains until his or her final judgment. So, on an allegorical level, confession stands for the best opportunity to purge the soul on Earth. Furthermore, through this character, the writer aims to show the faith of Catholicism, which asserts that repenting for past sins helps to get God's grace after a human being's death.
Likewise, the play also gives the message of the soul, which never dies but will weep after death if one sins the earth. It instructs human beings to repent for past deeds so that their purged souls will easily pass a final examination given by God. It also teaches human beings that this existing world is momentary and is just a trial for the everlasting world, heaven.
The major theme of the play, Everyman, is, like other morality plays, keeping the way of getting salvation. To do this, the dramatist creates a character, Everyman, who committed many crimes while accumulating wealth but whose sinful actions tortured him a lot. When he remembers his past sins and repents a lot, he gets salvation.
Unlike a miracle play or morality play, the Bible is never mentioned. In the miracle play, we find descriptions of Noah's Flood, Abraham, Isaac, and Christ's lives. But morality play seems very tricky in the sense that without illustrating the Bible, it gives the moral lesson of religion. In this regard too, Everyman is a morality play that does not exemplify any saints of the Bible to show the proper way of getting salvation.
To perform Everyman on stage is quite difficult due to the different abstract characters having allegorical meanings. Furthermore, in modern times, it is better to read than to perform because, to perform it, there are so many difficulties due to its unreal scenes. So, it is said that a morality play like Everyman should be recited by a person on the stage if it is brought to the theatre.
To sum up, it is a morality play because it uses allegorical and abstract characters, keeps the theme of salvation, is full of religion, expresses the Catholic faith, and gives moral lessons to the audience without illustrating the life of a holy person.
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