The Author’s Perception of Death and the Treatment of Death in Everyman

Every man is a play that was written in the 15th century and is employed as a spiritual message from the almighty God to the human being. The message concerning the aspect of death in the lay Everyman is linked with the hunt of reasoning about life. Everyman is a morality play whereby the author concentrates on allegorical drama in that the characters of the play are personifications of moral characteristics and abstractions. This paper will identify the perception of death and the treatment of death by the author of the play Everyman.  It is vital to note that the author of this play concentrates on the major aspects of love, friendship, life, vengeance and most importantly death (Cawley, 1961).

Everyman is the main character in this play; he has to sow the outcomes for all his actions in the face of death. According to the author, death is sent to earth via the call of God for the purpose of judging Everyman. It is thus evident that the author uses death as an indirect character in the play. It is appeared as a human being. Therefore, the author of Everyman attempts to give an explanation for need of salvation and to seek to God.  The term Everyman in the play refers to the ordinary man in the society. The author explores at ways of life of this ordinary man irrespective of race, religion, gender or religion. Any person who critically reads thus play is able to see the character Everyman since this particular reader is an ordinary man and there exists a close link between the two. The character everyman in the play involves a native man that was presence in the happy old days accruing to the author. In the contemporary society, Everyman is more sophisticated an individualistic due to evolution and thus the reader needs to relate the character of Everyman in the play to the 15th century period (Martin, 1998).

Everyman represents all men; the author of this play presents an allegorical journey that is taken by an ordinary man in the day to day activities. This journey takes the perspective of the Christian salvation on the grounds of the Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholicism was the only main church in the 15th century, however, a reader should be able apply and relate with the current religion or church. This Christian salvation suggested that in the event of the termination of everyman, he will come before God and his deeds would be weighed on the range of evil and righteous. For this reason, a man should seek good deeds over bad behaviors in order to acquire eternal life. Several characters in this play represent differing interests of the good and bad actions. Some characters show material possessions, companionship and knowledge. These two aspects represent the fight between the good and the bad deeds (Charles, 2004).

In this play, death is the unkind and unavoidable messenger that eventually takes the life of man. Death is sent by God to account for the behaviors of mans actions in earth as God is not happy with the man’s behavior to focus on search for material things. “On thee thou must take a long journey: Therefore thy book of count with thee thou bring; for turn again thou can not by no way, And look thou be sure of thy reckoning” (Takahashi, 1953). Everyman awareness and how to go about the issue of death is full of distress in this play. This is mainly due to the fact that everyman realizes that he has it lived a righteous life. Everyman is not ready to deal with life and thus tries to persuade death to grant him a second chance so as to make up for the past mistakes. However, the unkind nature of death does not allow man to have second chances (Martin, 1998).

On realizing that death will not disappear, the author shows the fear by everyman. As a result, he shifts to do good deeds and act in a righteous manner.  Unfortunately, these god actions cannot accompany everyman to death due to the fact that he has always rejected the good deeds and opted for the evil ones. Instead, Everyman is accompanied by knowledge. This is the point whereby everyman asks for forgiveness for his evil deeds. Nonetheless, everyman is punished with a curse for the committed sins in his lifetime. This is an implication that in order for an ordinary man to be accepted in the kingdom of God, he needs to be clean, repentant and act in righteous manners. In addition, the author sends the message that no man can get the eternal life with the absence of repentance and salvation. Before the death of Everyman, he receives his final sacrament which symbolizes the several rituals that are usually conducted by the Catholics (Martin, 1998).

The life of Everyman is about to come to an end, before this happens, he prays to God and asks for forgiveness and for his sins to be commended. Afterwards, Everyman unites other people in heaven where he hears angels singing. This is the point that comes to know that only the good deeds are surrounding him.  This is what the author describes as achieving of the eternal life. This raises the reality of the importance of an individual to maintain the body soul instead of focusing on acquiring material wealth and riches.  This is due to the fact that after death, man cannot take his material possessions with him. The author also suggests on the need to help the less privileged and less lucky people in the society (Charles, 2004).

Everyman should struggle to survive for tomorrow; this is because life is not all about the earthly contents as there is an eternal life that is more happy and promising.  Everyman ought to search for eternal life by taking the responsibility of doing good deeds, confessing when he does wrong and honor God. Through this way, Everyman will be given paradise as he will be judged by his deeds on earth. This also applies to the contemporary man n the current society. In addition, Everyman should not achieve the material possessions at the cost of religious gain. Material goods are immaterial in the eyes of God as an alternative the spiritual is what is of significance (Charles, 2004).

Finally, the author viewpoint on death in Every man is that God still loves the ordinary man despite the inadequacies, for this reason, he gives him a chance to repent his sins and come back as a clean person. However, the resolute character of everyman makes him forget the eternity life ahead. This is the main reason Everyman does not repent his sins until the beckoning of death. This is applicable in today’s world in the sense that most people ask for forgiveness and guidance from God when they are in trouble but when they are in their happiest moments in life they do not remember to give thanks to the almighty God.  Therefore, the author of the play everyman stands for the point that Everyman is the representation of an ordinary man, the journey that everyman practices during his life (Meijer, 2001). Everyone who is born of a woman has an appointment with death and no one can escape death despite their life status.  When an ordinary person gets summoned to death, not anything that is materialistic can accompany him.

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