Everyman as a Morality Play

One of the most important concepts in Everyman as a morality play (written cerca 1485) is the focus on man. Throughout the entire play, the focus is on what happens to him as a human being. In this sense, there is a clear structure and resolution. The concept of morality is connected more to the intellect more so than to the emotional state of man.

Everyman the protagonist, is a character who stands for Christian elements of goodness, kindness and humanity. Everyman represents a religious purpose by dramatizing significant events in biblical history and by showing what these events meant in terms of human experience. The moralities on the other hand, employed allegory to dramatize the moral struggle that Christianity represents as present in every man. Everyman is kind and gentle to everybody. However, he is deserted by his false friends, his casual companions, his kinsmen, and his wealth. Receiving some comfort from his enfeebled good deeds, he falls back on them and on his other resources: his strength, beauty, intelligence and his knowledge - qualities which when properly used, help to make an integrated man.

The power and scope of Everyman as a dramatic character can be seen through inner turmoil. Although he reveals a need to be wanted and loved by his friends, he realizes he must go through the Book of Accounts by himself alone and only alone. On an allegorical level, Everyman represents a realistic attempt to encompass humane and human qualities. In this respect, he integrates all the qualities important to mankind: good deeds, knowledge, fellowship. Kindred, strength, discretion and beauty. However, Everyman cannot depend upon any of the qualities which contribute to his humanness. Therefore, he must rely only on what he is given and not what he has received by others. This inner turmoil is revealed in the lines below:

",,,To my soul a full great profit it had be.

For now I fear pains huge and great.

The time passeth: Lord, help, that all wrought!

For though I mourn, it availeth nought."

These qualities assist him through the crisis in which he must make up his book of accounts, but at the end, when he must go to the grave, all desert him save his good deeds alone. Everyman communicates with us that he cannot depend on anything or anyone to help him through his period of crisis. He cannot take along from this world nothing, that he has received, only what he has been given by God.