Everyman - Play Analysis Essay

My group and I chose to perform Act 3 scene 3 from Twelfth Night, a relatively short scene involving Antonio and Sebastian. We chose the scene because it would require us to “gender-bend” because we would be playing men. The scene provides insight into Antonio’s dark past. When they walk into town, Sebastian is excited and thrilled to simply be alive, but Antonio does not want to be seen in the town. Antonio used to be a pirate at one point in his life, and it seems that he is on many a hit-list, especially Orsino’s. Earlier, Sebastian had gotten in a shipwreck, and Antonio saved him from the raging depths of the sea. Ultimately, they wash up in Illyria. Finally, it shows a different side of both characters that may not necessarily be shown in the rest of the play.

The Setting of “Sure Thing” by David Ivis is important in terms of setting the mood as well as the context for the play’s main conflict. “Sure Thing” is set in a café where the the two main characters, Bill and Betty, awkwardly encounter one another. During their encounter, a ring of a bell continues to disrupt their connection. Despite the ringing bell, or because of the ringing bell, the two characters are able to establish a connection. The fact that they are ultimately able to establish a connection suggests many thing about relationships, such as that timing can play a major role in either beginning or not beginning a relationship. For instance, the bell (and the bell’s timing) suggests that

Everyman is a morality play that teaches a lesson about how Christians should live and what they must do to save their souls. Humans over look God’s mercy. Caught up with the pleasures of life and the pursuit of material possessions, people forget to repent, or even acknowledge the Lord to receive forgiveness for their sins, which He is every ready to give. God calls attention to this near the beginning of the play. No human being can escape the final judgment. God tells Death that the day will come when every person must undergo a final journey and give an accounting of his life before the Lord. No man can escape this task; every person will face a day of reckoning. Everyman begins to show traits that almost all if not every human has. He looks for someone to complain to on his long journey. Everyman also tries to bring his riches and goods along with him. The farther he goes along on his trip he begins to lose his 5 senses the only things that he has known for basically all of his life. All these factors tie into the allegory stating that Everyman actually does represent every man.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a story about a king that was murdered by his brother and the prince has been asked by his father?s ghost to avenge his murder. The original story line has been altered a few times since it has been written. The original Hamlet the play and the altered Hamlet the movie are shown differently in many different ways. Hamlet the movie with Mel Gibson shows different things than the play, but there are three major differences between the two. The three major differences are in the way both of the productions start out, differences in the scene that the players put on a play, and differences in the way the productions end.

   Most characters in Hamlet present themselves as something other than themselves or how as we, the audience, or another character thinks they should appear.  Two of the main characters in this play, Hamlet and King Claudius, are constantly acting as something other than their true nature.    Ironically, the characters that invoke changes in Hamlet and King Claudius to reveal their real personalities are the players, merely actors themselves, not showing true emotion: (in this short analysis, I will attempt to display the truth revealed by the players) they agitate King Claudius and allow Hamlet to see their appearance as more accurate to the truth than the appearance of "real life

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare "Much Ado About Nothing" in fact has a great deal to say about love and marriage. What is Shakespeare trying to tell us about relationships between men and women? Compare the play's treatment of love with that in "Silas Marner" In "Much Ado About Nothing" there are many different forms of love and relationships that range from youthful infatuation to parental love. Shakespeare makes many comments about men and women and shows the audience a variety of both romantic and platonic relationships.

In Everyman, death is just a messenger for God. From the beginning of the play, it can be seen that Death is set below God. “The very opening of the play makes it clear that this "messenger" of God's is an agent of correction rather than of punishment; God tells the audience that he is sending Death, not to slay evildoers, as in Herod and the Castle, but rather to call people to a "reckoning," an explanation of what they have done with the lives lent to them” (Spinrad, 1987). Everyman did not want to go along with Death because life’s most disturbing power is death, death is so unfair, once one has tasted life death does not seem natural at all. “When Death explains that he is here to take Everyman on a “longe iourney” to make his “rekenynge … before God,” Everyman's incomprehension is humorous even as it reveals him to be deeply unready for Death's summons: he asks Death, “Sholde I not come agayne shortly?” Everyman's inability to recognize the permanence of Death's “journey” raises the question for the audience of what might constitute such recognition.” (Paulson, 2007). God finds that Everyman is not living in a right way so he asks on Death to let Everyman know that he has to give up his life.

The first of two plays that has been considered for selection in upcoming International Theatre for Young People's Festival soon to be held in Vancouver, Canada is "Blackrock" by the late Nick Enright. The plays must represent the values, attitudes and beliefs of today's Australian Youth Culture. "Blackrock" explores the strength of mateship, the importance of image and the dangers of peer pressure, parties and underage drinking. The second play is the popular "Blurred" by the playwright Stephen Davis; which offers a comedic and clever representation of perhaps the most famous Australian youth orientated rite of passage, "Schoolies". Both of these plays portray representations of the highest calibre of Australian youth culture. Both

Hamlet decides to get more information / prove what the ghost was saying before doing

About a month ago, my friend invited me to a play on campus that he was going to be staring in. The play was titled, In the Red and Brown Water, and it was located at the Annex theatre. I was curious to know what the play was about so that I can get an idea of what to expect. He mentioned that it is a detailed representation of black culture in the projects of Louisiana. Being that I am an African American male who was raised in a predominately white community, my interest in going to this play suddenly grew. The only knowledge I have about the projects is through media and knowing the general stereotypes of an inner-city area. When I attended the play, I had a fantastic learning experience, and noticed several connections to the texts that we study in the course.

Thomas J. Jambeck describes Everyman as a Bernadine humanism work, a work in which a man acts as “an active agent in the work of his own redemption” (109). William Munson echoes this idea, writing that Bernadine humanism gives emphasis to a person's motive, which is the reason why a person acts the way he does (252). Both authors agree that if knowledge is what a person uses to influence his or her actions, then good works in Everyman become the play’s central theme. Knowing what to do and doing it are necessary to accomplish good works (Munson 257-58). Everyman shows the importance of Knowledge and Good Deeds acting together when he plurally addresses them when he says, "now friends, let us not part in twain" (Line 651). Good works become the result of the two working together. Since man has fallen after Adam and Eve's original sin, Murdow William McRae argues that a true Christian must "cooperate with grace; that is, he must live well in the life of grace in order to achieve heaven" (723). This statement implies that good works save people from hell and allow them to dwell eternally with God.

Here, disease imagery is used to convey the disease of corruption that appears to have infected those from Elsinore. This is the true King Claudius - without the superficial grandeur. From this example of multi-faceted personality, it can be seen how Shakespeare uses the pretence of his characters as the basis of their complex personalities. If this is compared to the introspective nature of Hamlet's behavior, the difference between the two main instigators of corruption is quite marked.

The Netflix original series Marco Polo is a drama about a young Italian man named Marco Polo, and the struggles and betrayals he must face and overcome. Immediately the show starts off in high gear when the merchant party consisting of many extras that had a very short part in the show, Marco Polo, his father and his uncle come across a massacred, still smoldering village. As the group looks about the village one person runs away, but in the direction of the bad guys, as they ride their horses out of the perfectly placed smoke they fill the guy who tries to run with arrows and ride up to the group and kill everyone but the three polo’s. The makeup and special effects of this scene are particularly outstanding and they make the scene so much more real looking, and if the graphics and makeup where not as good as they were the scene probably would have looked very cheese.

In the poem When I Consider How My Light Is Spent by John Milton, the author talked about how he became blind and lost the ability to display his “talents”. In the third line, the author said that “one talent which is death to hide”. The word “talent” in this line not only means its literal meaning but also is a reference to a story in the bible. The Parable of the Bags of Gold is a story in the bible that talks about a servant who did not use his talents.

What is Hamlet about? Maybe a summary of the plot could answer this question but it wouldn’t do it justice. However it’s impossible to narrow down any of William Shakespeare’s work to one theme. The fact is, that all of Shakespeare’s plays are about many things. There are many ways to look at a Shakespearean play, and none are wrong of course, but it is not entirely true to say that one theme is the most important. Some of the more common and dominate themes that can be found in any of Shakespeare’s works are: conflict, appearance and reality, order and disorder, and change.