Everyman, The English Counterpart Of The Flemish Play Elckerlijc

Meaning and significance of death in the light of the Christian narrative is addressed and shows a deep understanding, including a detailed description and many examples.

God then commands Death to show Everyman who is outside of the law of God what must come to him without escape or delay, the day of reckoning for all. Death encounters Everyman and has questioned him about why he has neglected God, “Everyman, stand still! Whither art thou going thus gaily? Hast thou thy Maker forget?” (Anonymous). Death dispenses the bad news that his day of reckoning for his sins has come and he must give account to God. Upon hearing that his time has come to an end he begins to fear his journey to go before God and give an answer to how he lived his life on earth. Everyman bribes Death to give him another day. Everyman’s argument is that Death did not give him a warning and now he wants to find a companion to accompany him on this journey of reckoning. As time nears Everyman struggles with his ignorance and therefore begins to seek and call upon his earthly friends such as Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, and Goods. Everyman discovers that one by one his acquaintances and possessions, whom he held dear to his heart and promised to be with him till the end, all abandon him in his time of need.

have forgotten their duties to the less fortunate. This prompts God's call for a "reckoning," which Death readily carries out.

The Second Shepherds’ Play is renowned medieval mystery play, which is contained in the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. The plays within the manuscript coarsely follow the chronology of the Bible, and so were thought to be a cycle. This play gained its name, because it instantly shadows another nativity play involving shepherds. Some would even say that the second play is a modification of the first. However, in both plays it becomes vibrant that Christ is coming to Earth to convert the world from its sins. Even though the Second Shepherds’ Play has a more somber tone, many tricks that occur are tremendously absurd in nature.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Axelrod, 2017). She stated that

The play illustrated by Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt (2011), “Everyman” written by an anonymous writer late in the fifteenth-century (p. 265-287), interconnects religious allegories with worldly moral lessons on several main reasons that good deeds and works are required and needed, but they do not save humanity from spiritual death. The play conveys a story about Everyman’s (representing human individuals) natural life journey to death. The morality of the play helps the audience appreciate the history of Christianity. The focal point throughout the play is about humanities, life plan and a journey that requires every man to construct an unworldly firm foundation built up strong to help overcome any uprooting storm within a lifetime. Its personification comes in the form of the characters Everyman, Goods, and Goods Deeds, who embodied the concept of teaching lessons to humanity of the significance of living a Christ-centered life and learning to allow the heart restored and guided by God to help aid good judgement (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). Thomas F. Van Laan (1963) describes Everyman’s play, “The human action and its allegorical significance together form a distinct structural pattern which not only imposes discipline but also contributes its own intrinsic meaning”. From the start of the first phase 5-6, the first point of view of the play engages, “…That of our lives and ending* shows / How transitory we be all day.*…” (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). The play displays how

Abstract The author’s perception and treatment of Everyman are that each individual need to prepare for it by repenting, following God, and doing good works. The author’s perception is that at the end of the day one cannot take anything or anyone with them when they die. The only entity someone can take is their actions and how they use the resources that are given to them. Those who put God before everything and perform good works will enjoy eternity with Him, but those who enjoy only the pleasures of life and forget God, will not. The author’s main message throughout the play is to not fearful of death but know that one day everyone will die, so do as much good as one can, repent of one’s sins, and to put God first. Keywords: author, perception, treatment, death The Author’s Perception and Treatment of Death in Everyman In the late fifteenth century, an unknown author wrote a morality play called Everyman. According to Pearson, a morality play during the Medieval period would communicate a moral lesson and make it so simple that both illiterate and well-educated audiences could both understand the lesson (Adu-Gyamfi, 2016). One may believe that the author of Everyman want to communicate to the audience that everyone will receive judgment the actions they commit on Earth. The author’s perception of death is that God is the only one who has the power to control when each individual die, so if one has a relationship with Him one should not be fearful death. The author

Everyman’s reaction is a statement that death is an individual journey on which nobody can accompany another. It is also a statement that all your supposed allies cannot help nor save you when death strikes.

The play Everyman begins with God commanding his messenger Death to summon “every creature and give account” of their lives. The name Everyman symbolizes mankind who has become “blotted and blind” by worldly riches and have “wend” onto the corrupt path. The author alludes to biblical allusions, “I [suffer] to be dead and “[hang] between two,” to alert people from God’s anger. This imagery evokes desolate tone because Jesus, the savior of mankind, is crucified between two thieves to save man from drowning into sins such as; “pride, covetise, wrath, and lechery.” However the mankind still overlooks Him and hence Death is send to Everyman. The Pardoner’s Tale, begins with three rioters who “daunce [drink and gamble] bothe day and night.” The author portrays this

The author’s diction makes the reader feel that death ca be defeated. For example, death has been called “mighty and dreadful” but the author shows that it is not more than a “short sleep” where men go for the “rest of their bones.” The general idea of death is frightful and scary, but the reader is told that it’s only a short phase everyone goes through. It’s an opportunity for men to separate their soul and physical body. In

“Everyman” is regarded as a morality play that was written in late 15th century. According to Michael A. Babcock, author of the story of Western culture, “Morality plays can be explained in best ways because of allegories figure out efforts made between seven virtues and seven vices contained in heart of man”. The play is a picture of what Christians should do or how they should spend their lives to save their souls from being convicted by death (Yaw Adu-Gyamfi P.265). The understanding of death in “Everyman” play is influenced by how people live their lives. The play brings out an idea of how people struggle to choose between worldly things and the ultimate spiritual judgment. The conflict between riches, relationship and the spiritual enrichment, heaven and hell and God’s verdict seems to be on the rise in the play. Babcock also states, “Everyman is a struggle between good and evil, between seven virtues as well as seven vices”. (167). we see how life is a transitory, when the play documents Everyman’s journey from sinful life to sin free life and finally to a holy death.

The Poem begins with a personification of death as "kindly" (3). By doing this, the speaker introduces a portrayal on death that might have conflictions. Most of the times, death has a negative connotation. Whether it is an inevitable or tragic view, it opposes to what is seen in the poem. The speaker accepts death as a friendly invitation when the time is right, rather than something that is bound to happen. The speaker then joins immortality, personified as a passenger in a carriage. Immortality simply cannot be a passenger as it is a non-living thing. The reasoning for this could be that immortality ties together the link between the speaker and death, ultimately introducing the voyage to come. The first stanza sets a precedent of a meter to follow throughout most of the poem. The first line contains eight

The author of the play “Everyman” has the main character Everyman to only symbolize the typical human being. Death, also known as the antagonist, is a messenger sent by God to summon Everyman. The author is trying to show readers that death is inescapable, and every human being will have to face it one day. In the beginning of the play, God speaks about his death on the cross to give life to His people, mentions the deadly sins, He tells that people live for their own enjoyments, and how some have neglected Him. God then commands Death to show Everyman who is outside of the law of God what must come to him without escape or delay, the day

Everyman opens with a monologue by the Messenger, who warns the audience of the temptation of sin, claiming that man “think[s] sin in the beginning full sweet, which in the end causeth the soul to weep” (13-14) Directly after this monologue, the character of God enters, and laments humanity’s continuous self-absorbedness, which restrains them from following him: “I perceive, here in my majesty, how that all creatures be to me unkind, living without dread in worldly prosperity. Of ghostly sight the people be so blind, drowned in sin, they know me not for their God” (22-26). He continues his lament by saying that mankind only cares about earthly riches instead of religion. He calls on Death, and assigns him with the task of taking Everyman on “a pilgrimage he must on him take” (Greenblatt et al 510), a pilgrimage that will result in Everyman’s death. Everyman, fearing Death and God’s judgement, attempts to gather his friends to accompany him on his journey. This is what causes the play’s conflict and shows the moral message, namely that Everyman’s friends in the living world abandon him in time of need, showing how earthly things do not matter as much as living a moral and Christian life. These friends, all allegorical characters, personifying virtues such as Beauty, Strength, Kindred, Fellowship and Discretion, as well as other concepts, including Confession and Goods, all promise