Everyman Essay, Research Paper

In the medieval play Everyman, the author uses the play as a piece of didactic literature. Everyman is a morality play that uses an individual, Everyman, to represent all men. The play dramatizes his reckoning with death and salvation to show that when one dies, all of the things one lives for are taken away, and only your good deeds succeed. He uses the characters to teach a moral. The main character in the play, Everyman, serves as the embodiment of everyman in the world. The moral of this play is a good one. All things o this earth are mere vanity. Beauty, Strength, and Discretion fade away. Foolish friends and heedless next of kin- all flee from you, except Good Deeds.

The play begins with God dissatisfied because all creatures on the earth choose riches over righteousness and generally live a life of sin. He summons death to seek out Everyman and force him to a reckoning of his life. The time has come to take a long journey. And be sure to bring your book of accounts, For there is no way you could go back for it. And be sure your reckoning is straight and true- This line is the first encounter between Everyman and Death. Everyman begs Death for some time to get his affairs in order, but Death refuses and Everyman becomes forced to face his reckoning for his life and begins to look for friends who will make this ominous journey with him.

The play shows the hero s progression from despair and fear of death to a Christian resignation that is the prelude to redemption. First, Everyman is deserted by his false friends: his casual companions, his kin, and his wealth. He falls back on his

Good Deeds, his Strength, his Beauty, his Intelligence, and his Knowledge. These

assist him in making his Book of Accounts, but at the end, when he must go to the grave, all desert him save his Good Deeds alone. The play makes a point that we can take with us from this world nothing that we have received; only what we have given.

Every character represents a different characteristic of the main character, Everyman. The characters are used as symbols. Beauty, Strength, and Discretion are examples of some different characteristics that were expressed in Everyman. These characteristics are assumed to make up a person. However, it is proven that these characteristics make up a person, but they are not the most important. The most important characteristic in a person is doing good deeds. Knowledge also makes up who a person can be. Everyman had many important characteristics in his life. When Everyman went to the Afterlife, the only thing that went with Everyman was his knowledge, and his Good Deeds.

Death serves as an important character in Everyman. Death symbolized a messenger of God. He was the figure that went down to Earth to retrieve Everyman and take him to the afterlife. Death was a significant part of Everyman because he was the deliverer of Everyman s initiative to find something to accompany him to his forever journey, to heaven or to hell. Death serves as the character that changes lives.

In an important way, the play Everyman demonstrates the ways in which a person who does have talents wastes them, like the servant who buries his one talent in the ground and is cast into the dark. This parable of the talents therefore refers to the metaphor life is a precious possession. If you have many talents, you must invest them wisely as well. Even if you have only one talent, you must invest it wisely and do good in the world with that talent.

Everyman exemplifies a play that teaches a moral. The universal theme or moral in this play is So good deeds and obtain as much knowledge that you possibly can because every good thing that you do and everything that you learn will stay with you for your whole life and you will be recognized for everything that you do, sooner or later.