Plot
God appears who is disillusioned by humans who no longer worship him and live sinful lives, God then orders death to summon everyman so he can be judged for his good and ill deeds
Everyman is unwilling to die and unprepared for his reckoning, death does allow everyman a companion for his pilgrimage
Everyman seeks out Fellowship for companionship and he promises undying loyalty however when he finds out this means he dies to he refuses to come
Everyman then speaks to his relatives Kindred and Cousin however while they promise to stand by him initially they also leave him as they do not want to die
Next Everyman asks Goods who he has loved for a long time who also leave him after finding out what the journey consists of, goods also tells everyman that everyman’s love for him condemns him to reckoning
Everyman then finds good deeds who is so weak from his sin that she cannot stand, she offers that her sister knowledge could him and knowledge guides everyman to confession who teaches him to repent
Good deeds becomes healed and she can now accompany everyman on his journey, knowledge gives him a garment of sorrow to show contrition
Good Deeds and Knowledge request Discretion, Strength, Beauty, Five-wits who all agree to accompany on his pilgrimage
Everyman undergoes the remaining sacraments of last rites and the group continues on their journey
As he undergoes his final reckoning Beauty, Strength, Discretion and five wits all desert him while knowledge agrees to stay to the last moments and good deeds go with him
Knowledge if left on stage while good deeds and everyman’s souls go to the after life, knowledge hears an angel appears welcomes everyman into heaven
It ends with a doctor telling the audience they must make amends for their sins before they die
Good Deeds
Good Deeds - Good Deeds is gendered as feminine - she is so weak so she cannot and stand with
Everyman (Everyman’s life has been so sinful), as Everyman repents she becomes strong enough to help him, she is the only one initially willing to help him despite her weak state
Until Death Good Deeds remains in the background since good works are not given their reward until after death
Everyman
represents the whole of humankind, Everyman has no moral compass and he must have an awakening to this, Everyman cannot read is account book - if he paid more attention to Good Deeds he would be able to read it
As Everyman himself is both a personification of the entire human race and an individual actor, he represents the fusion of one man and everyone, so the judgement each individual will meet at death is conflated in him with the Last, or General, Judgement.
He begins panicked by his iminate death and his abandonment by the rest of his friends but Good Deeds and Knowledge reassure him and he ends ready to die
Dramatically the aloneness of Everyman at the beginning makes him a pathetic figure - he has no one to plead for him in front of Gods throne
The pathos is being abandoned by the creatures he has loved most arouses sympathy but the author wishes also to teach and remind the audience even as he solicits their pity
Death
- he is under the command of God, he does not accept Everyman’s bribery as he has power over those who have lived sinful lives, he comes for everyone
Knowledge
Knowledge is self-knowledge - this leads him to confession, What knowledge means changes with context, she could represent the knowledge between what is right and wrong, she cannot follow Everyman after death but waits to hear what has happened to him
Knowledge is the only character left on stage at the end when angels announce the reception of Everyman into heaven - she stays until she knows what becomes of him
Other character analysis
The characters may be rooted in ideas but are given a larger identity and humanised when they are joined with living actors and given presence on stage
The order in which the things leave him: beauty, strength, discretion and 5 wits
Good Deeds and Knowledge do not leave
Comedic excuses - the cousin says he has cramp in his toe
The author is careful to make these false friends appear in a climatic order according to the increasing danger of each as a distraction from one’s Maker
Fellowship is dangerous as he may lead Everyman into sins of the flesh while Cousins and Kindred are dangerous are they may misplace his trust in the love and loyalty of his family when he should look to God alone
Goods is the most serious threat as excessive love of worldly goods closes the soul to love of any higher object
Everyman’s companions are not false vices, they are simply irrelevant, existing on a superficial plane
It also dramatically necessary since the episode with Goods is the natural preparation for and transition to the calling forth of Good Deeds
The authors introduces the four counsellors to remind the audience of mans utter dependence upon God
Key Themes
Commercially produced, is advertised as a treatsus
Moral but playful - there’s a balance between moral and playfulness whilst still respecting moral meaning
The play reverses the accpeted morality play focus on defining evil so that the audience may better recognise and avoid it and concenttrayes on defining the good
Spoken by an authoritative narrator who is telling you what to think. Asking for respect. Asking for the audience to take a more serious attitude whilst watching
Part of a wider phenomenon which everyone gets obsessed and ready for death - having confessed all your sins and making your will etc.
Structured as a series of goodbyes to people and things he’s known in his life
At the same time Everyman is aging, certain qualities start to leave him - this is towards the end of the play
Good Deeds and Knowledge can’t last after death
The priesthood is very important for reconcile
In Everyman’s case he must make restitution for the wrongs he has done and he must share the remainder of his wealth with those in need
The plays intent is not to teach abstract doctrine but to move its readership or audience emotionally and intellectually toward a resolution that emphasises both owned individual responsibility and the importance of being connected in this life with ones community
Allegory - extended, systematic metaphor with two parallel levels of meaning
Castle, battle, journey common allegories in morality plays
Personifications of abstract qualities such as Everyman e.g Fellowship, Good Deeds, Beauty
The pardoners tale is an exploration of the thought, if you have no morality or good faith in you can you tell a good story and can you be trusted
Two paradoxes - though man is incapable of doing anything by himself to merit salvation and is saved by the Sacrifice on the Cross, yet he is finally judged on the basis of his own good works
While Christ died for all men, only through membership in his church may anyone be saved
The author of Everyman is careful to show that while some may not share in its benefits the redemption was intended for all
The new friends as their names indicate are properties of Everyman not external things like the first group
The author having presented the more obvious message in the first climax proceeds to a more subtle lesson here. There is a danger of Pelagianism in the man who lives well; he may attribute his sanctity to his own efforts rather than to the free gifts of God’s grace
The seven sacraments are essential for redemption and the poet deals specifically with the three that are received upon the approach to death - penance, the holy eucharist and extreme unction
The communion of Everyman is not dramatized possibly out of a sense of decorum and the supposedly digressive sermon serves here to express a truth that the hero has learned through his experience
Though death Is conclusion the moment is one for release and exaltation for the meaning of the pattern has been fully revealed to the protagonist
It is better for a man to face reality and to learn what he really is and has
The theology presented actually determines the structure of the morality
Life is unreal, death is the only reality. The audience is made aware of the inevitability of death and death’s finality; suffering and loneliness eclipse any sense of what may life beyond
Language features
The prosopopoeia or personification in creating dramatic characters involves a fundamental rhetorical separation between the play world and the real world
Genre
Title page implies it should be treated as a literary or religious work rather than drama
It is a morality play - a famous one called Mankind, the castle of perseverance, wisdom
They are set in no time or outside historical time, the protagonist is generally a figure of all men reflected in his name and the action concerns alienation from God and return to God, presented as the temptation, fall and restitution of the protagonist
To anchor their action in the world, the plots of these plays depend heavily on extended metaphor - this is a pilgrimage in Everyman
It teaches a moral lesson, the protagonist is usually a universal figure to represent mankind
Morality Plays e.g Everyman - allegorical figure teaching moral messages
Mystery plays/cycle plays/Corpus Christi plays - often based on biblical texts e.g York Crucifixion
Saints plays e.g Digby Mary Magdalene
Plays about church doctrine (e.g paternoster)
Plays of Robin Hood, St George and other mumming plays: drama performed at festivals and feasts
Allegorical play - a moral or moral play, is a drama the characters of which are allegorical, abstract or symbolical and the story of which is intended to convey a lesson for the better conduct of human life
Structurally, the play turns on two climaxes, growing out of the abandonment of the hero by two theologically and dramatically distinct groups of friends in whom he has placed his confidence and the second which Everyman prepares for death by receiving the last sacraments
The authors dramatic and pedagogical timing coincide perfectly. Everyman already made joyous by his confession and the strengthening of his Good Deeds, becomes actually jubilant at the sight of so many friends to assist him on his journey
The hero’s exultation is ironic for upon seeing the grave all of these counsellors will desert him even as his false friends had done
Form
Although no remedy seems to be at hand as the speech begins, the time is appropriate for the reversal of fortune which coincides with the correct theological moment of Everyman to turn at last to something that can save him
There is a moment of dramatic suspense in order that the audience may grasp the full import of the situation: good deeds in themselves are as nothing if a man be in the state of sin
The relationship between the doctrine that the author wishes to present and the dramatic means he employs to convey that doctrine to his audience
The theology is indispensable not indefensible and furthermore that it gives the play its characters, structure, significance and even its dramatic impressiveness
The mode is personification allegory - makes the abstract tangible
The idea that Everyman follows is the death comes to everyone (literal level) - the allegorical level comes when death becomes a character
Context
In this period it more normal for French texts to be translated, not Dutch texts
Commercial centre of Western Europe is Antwerp - this is where the English merchants were
- Centre of trade in 14th century is Bruges - Bruges goes into decline and the city that takes over is Antwerp
Antwerp (centre for early printing) is where the original Dutch text was printed - Leeu printed it
Much protestant literature was printed here
Every act of translation in this period involves a historical moment of contact - Dutch and the English were living in close quarters in Antwerp where the text was originally printed
Most original example of the English morality play - bridge between the medieval mysteries and secular Renaissance drama
Four printed editions that are known indicates popularity - consistent with the taste of the time for treatises on dying and on the spiritual life
Discussion shows that Everyman is a translation and adaption from the Duth Elckerlijc
Since it is adapted from an earlier play it is hard to see it as being a typical example of the English morality play
The early morality plays are few in number and it is not possible to recognise in them a consistent theatrical tradition
Sixteenth century - mortality was always of an immediate threat, Coventry and Norwich were in a state of crisis on account of the severe decline in their populations
The tension between the love of goods and the necessity of a good death as described by the treatises on the art of dying
Everyman focuses on what to do when death’s certainty and the uncertainty of the time of its coming, particularly in a historical period of widespread plague and other affliction
It reflects an affluent and secure position in society, like elckerlijc did, making it easily adaptable to the English scene
First recorded performance of the play was in 1901 - figure of death given a drum and a trumpet
It wasn’t a commercial transaction - funding would come from the aristocracy to entertain guests or bigger events
Plays were done in open air and the actors and audience knew each other, usually around a festival or community occasion
Most popular form of medieval drama was a dramatized fight e.g St George and the dragon
When kings would visit the town a tableaux would be performed for the occasion
In York, whole cycle is a ‘play’, made up of individual ‘pageants
Guilds/crafts/mysteries take responsibility for performance and get funds from pageant silver
Pageants performed on pageant wagons
The pageants stop at stations
Needs very long hours of daylight to be performed - June works best
Actors a mixture of amateurs and professionals
Allows people separate from the clergy to celebrate the bible stories
Five surviving morality plays: The Pride of Life (early 15th century?/maybe from Ireland), Castle of Perseverance, Wisdom, Mankind, Everyman (c.1500, based on Dutch original, Elckerlijk, c.1495)
Castle of Perseverance - performed in a large field/big marketplace (touring production)
Linked to its roots in the Devotio Moderna (concerned with personal reflection and spiritual introspection), the play offers clear evidence of the religious vitality of a lay piety, with an interest in prayer, devotion and practical religion
Critical comments
The impression made by this morality on modern audiences as pure drama has served to obscure its original doctrinal purpose
