Transcript Everyman - Faulkner University

Everyman
A Morality Play
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; plot’s action
must be interpreted as teaching something about
the human condition.
• Often dramatize man’s struggle to avoid vice and
seek virtue.
Everyman
• In England:
• Dramatized the progress of the Christian’s
life from
• innocence
• sin
• repentance
sin
repentance
salvation
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
Everyman
• Allegory
• May involve personification of
• Abstract qualities
− Truth, Beauty
• An event
− Death
• Another sort of abstraction
− In Spenser’s Faerie Queen
– Una = the one True Church
• Historical personage
− Piers Plowman = Christ
Everyman
• Allegory
• Characters, events, and setting may be
historical or fictitious.
• Test is that characters, etc., must represent
meanings independent of the action
described in the surface story.
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.
Everyman
• Allegory
• On the allegorical level both stories
concern the duties of a Christian and the
way to achieve salvation.
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.
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
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.
Everyman
• Key question the playwright addresses:
• What must a man do to be saved?
Everyman
• Characters
•
•
•
•
Everyman
God
Death
Allegorical representations of the worldly
things and spiritual attributes which will
affect his salvation
Everyman
• The playwright intends the central
character (Everyman) to represent
every human being
• Death is a universal human experience.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Everyman
• Doctor comes to stage to reiterate the
moral of the story:
• “For, after death, amends man no man
make.”