In the late fifteenth century a medieval morality play was written by an unknown author called “Everyman”. The author uses the character Everyman to describe all of human kind. Everyman is seen as a man cares little about faith and lives solely for his own pleasures. It isn’t until Death comes to him as a messenger from God to summon him to be judged by God, that he realizes that death is imminent. He realizes that his actions throughout life will decide his fate after death. The author of this morality play uses allegory characters to define the morals of the character Everyman.
The characters in the play, “Everyman”, all symbolize something or someone in Everyman’s life. The author uses allegory characters to show the audience the morals of Everyman by using them as characters. The dictionary defines allegory as “a poem, play, picture, etc., in which the apparent meaning of the characters and events is used to symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning” (Allegory). The author did a great job making it clear that the characters symbolized the morals of Everyman by the way that he named the characters. The main character in this play is Everyman. Everyman is defined as “an ordinary person; the typical or average person” (Everyman). The author’s choice to name the main character Everyman shows his desire to let the audience know that Everyman can be any human being, even the average Joe.
The first character to enter the play is Messenger. Messenger has no particular value to the play, only to set the plot, setting and tone for the play. Next enters God. Although God only appears at the beginning of the play, it is apparent that he is unhappy with mankind in general and He calls upon Death to bring Everyman to his judgment day. Here we see the author’s need to name the character Everyman. It shows that God could have called upon anyone. Death plays a very important role in the play. He is the one who lets Everyman know that his judgment day is near and he is God’s messenger.
When Everyman realizes that Death is upon him, he wants to invite others to join him on his journey to his judgment day. The next character then enters, which is Fellowship. Fellowship is the first of Everyman’s friends to forsake him. Fellowship symbolizes all of Everyman’s friendships. Fellowship tries to get Everyman to abandon the pilgrimage to have fun. When Everyman refuses, Fellowship, although blesses his journey, abandons him in his time of need. Kindred and Cousin represent family members to Everyman and they are the second to forsake him. Next Everyman asks Goods to accompany him on his journey. Goods represent things, assets or properties that belong to Everyman. Here the author is making a point that you cannot take things, assets or properties with you when your time has ended as a living being.
The next character also plays a very important role in “Everyman” because he is the only character to stay with Everyman throughout his entire pilgrimage. Good Deeds represents the good actions that Everyman has done in his lifetime. Although Good Deeds is the first to join Everyman on his journey, he wasn’t able to go at first because of he was so weak. This is where Knowledge comes into the play. Knowledge represents the knowledge that Everyman
