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Everyman

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.

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Everyman

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  1. Everyman A Morality Play

  2. 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.

  3. Everyman • In England: • Dramatized the progress of the Christian’s life from • innocence sin • sin repentance • repentance salvation

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. Everyman • Allegory • On the allegorical level both stories concern the duties of a Christian and the way to achieve salvation.

  9. 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.

  10. 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

  11. 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.

  12. Everyman • Key question the playwright addresses: • What must a man do to be saved?

  13. Everyman • Characters • Everyman • God • Death • Allegorical representations of the worldly things and spiritual attributes which will affect his salvation

  14. Everyman • The playwright intends the central character (Everyman) to represent every human being • Death is a universal human experience.

  15. 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.

  16. 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

  17. 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.

  18. 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.

  19. 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.

  20. Everyman • Doctor comes to stage to reiterate the moral of the story: • “For, after death, amends man no man make.”

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