An Analysis of Humour and Allegory in the Play Everyman

This essay delves into the significance of humour within the medieval morality play, Everyman, examining its allegorical characters and themes related to salvation and death. The analysis explores how humour, often derived from human nature and eccentricities, serves to critique societal behaviours and beliefs. The play's allegorical figures, including Everyman, are used to reflect on the human journey towards salvation and the consequences of one's actions. The essay also highlights the play's impact on English writing and its portrayal of death, contrasting medieval and modern perspectives. References to the play's historical context and the use of humour as a form of comic relief are also included, offering a comprehensive understanding of Everyman's enduring relevance.

Running head: EVERYMAN
EVERYMAN
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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The Role of Humour in Everyman
The fifteen century morality play The Somonyn of Everyone is commonly known as the
Everyone.(Badir 1-3). Similar to that of the Pilgrims’ Progress by John Bunyan which is written
in the year 1698, allegorical characters is being used in Everyman in order to analyze the
question of the salvation which is related to Christianity and the things which must be done by
the man in order to attain it.
The term humour is a medieval term which tends to mean the fluids that tend to control
the body and even the temperament of the human. The theory that can be traced from the elder
ages is that there are four different types of fluid in the body which are the blood, yellow bile,
phlegm and the black bile. If any of the fluids or humors are misbalanced then it tends to create
a disturbance in the personality. In “Every man in his humour”, each of the characters possesses
a certain type of eccentric attitude. Every character possesses the humour of its own kind. From
the presentation of character, humor as a characteristic feature of absurdity, eccentricity or
abnormality is being perfectly portrayed. Thus, human nature is being taken as the source of
nature to depict the comedy or humour in Everyman. It can be said that Everyman is one of the
most successful play. However, the play is considered to be significant because it actually laid
the basis for the realism of comedy in the sector of English writing and even make the comedy of
humours very much popular.
The play tends to have certain allegorical figures. The allegorical presentation is there
through the everyman. Here the figure of everyman is very much unhappy over the fact that
every man is not being remembered and is actually forgotten by humanity. It is because of this
reason, God sends Death to make everyman a reckoning of his life. This journey is basically

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considered as a journey from which no one can go away, exit or even return. It is this unexpected
and the most unwanted journey that we tend to follow so that we can meet the maker. On
reaching to the destination of the maker, everyman is either send to heaven via the despair or to
that of the hell. The place in which the everyman will be reaching will be determined by the
accounts of his deeds. However, the deeds of the everyman are empty with the good ones and are
all filled with the bad ones. So in order to heaven, every man must do things which are positive
in the short span of time which is available so that everyman reaches to heaven and not to the
destination of hell. In order to do the positive deeds, everyman will be requiring the help of the
other allegorical personifications. In everyman, the time of the death and the fitness in order to
face it is being fully trusted upon which is being shown unapologetically on the faces as well.
The audience of the medieval theatre were given various chances to face and even experience the
impact of the theatre. The drama of the medieval period tends to lie in a variety of forms but the
authors who actually wrote it is always hidden and are mostly not known. Though the figure of
death is shown in the sense of humour, it seems to have a message behind it (Goldhamer 87-98).
Seeing the figure of death in front of the eyes, the audience who are present are actually forced to
consider their own ledger. They tend to understand that they themselves are going to the
destination of heaven. The attitude towards death in the play belonging to the middle age strikes
the audience odd because the middle age, as well as the approaches of the twenty first century,
seems to be no more than different. In the present scenario, death has become very much a part
of the real-life indeed (Little 1-23.) Various English lyrics belonging to the middle English were
actually dedicated to the three sorrowful things that intended in haunting the humanity or
everyman which are the predictability of the death, the hesitation of when the death is going to
take place and it also concerns the unknowability of where the soul will be going after the death.

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this is very much well presented in the dance of the death, a symbolic metaphor that tends to
show that leading kings of the death, the ladies who are high born and others together in the
prime of their respective lives, are in a dance to that of the graves. In the present scenario, the
humor is not being used in the portrayal of the dance of the death to remind all of us of its
inevitability. In order to defer death, everybody tries to remain healthy. Unlike the middle ages,
we tend to avoid the pain and suffering in the last days of our life rather than accepting it as a
way of securing a good place in the eternity which is the life after death. the figure Everyman has
actually forgotten the relationship between the behaviour that one has in this life and the impact
that it has upon the next life.The figure everyman tends to spend his life with his fellowship by
either drinking, eating, by chasing women or by getting involved in some wrong means. Though
an individual might not believe in the life that tends to be after the death, this allegory has the
strength to make us remember that the life and the wealth are both ephemeral and that it can
actually be taken away at any moment of the time.
There is a scene in which the everyman runs to the offstage in order to find a priest and
perform the rites or the rituals that are there remaining. It is in the middle of the stage that the
god blesses the goods with the help of the cross and then goes on to use the cross for the purpose
of showing an erection. Intimated by this, the figure of good gets hold of the cross and the couple
shares a kiss and finally goes to the offstage with a pair of children. Though it is mainly enacted
for the purpose of entertainment to the cast and the audience, the scene also acts as comic relief
as it permits everyman’s self- whipping. It is considered to be a very strong amount of bawdy
humour that is being tucked within our modern morality play (Tromans 195-196.). On the other
hand, the decision that is being taken to have the conversation of the knowledge and the five
sense along with the love scene of the death and the good to go hand in hand tends to force the

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audience to actually divide their attention and even decide on how they want to participate in the
game of the play.
Though a gap tends to exist between the belief of death in the middle age and that of the
modern age, the everyman with its humour gives an opportunity to bring the gap closer.

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References
Badir, Patricia. "Everyman." The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain (2017): 1-3.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb466
Goldhamer, Allen D. "Everyman: A dramatization of death." (1973): 87-98.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335637309383156
Little, Katherine C. "What Is Everyman?." Renaissance Drama 46.1 (2018): 1-23.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/697173?journalCode=rd
Tromans, Philip. "English Drama from Everyman to 1660: Performance and Print by Frederick
Kiefer." Theatre Notebook 71.3 (2017): 195-196.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/710619/summary

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