Modern Language Association

Everyman: A Structural Analysis

Author(s): Thomas F. van Laan
Source: PMLA, Vol. 78, No. 5 (Dec., 1963), pp. 465-475
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/460724
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 EVERYMAN: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
BY THOMASF. VAN LAAN
T HE HIGH VALUE of Everyman has been
provocatively asserted in T. S. Eliot's de-
scription of it as "perhaps" the only English
drama "within the limitations of art."' Eliot
writes this while discussing the lack of form in
post-Kydian drama and thus implies that the
source of this value is the play's formal unity.
David Kaula has taken Eliot to mean "that
nothing in the play is extraneous to the central
homiletic purpose, that all elements of style,
structure, and theme are governed by the con-
ventions of allegory."2 Yet the emphasis on
Everyman's homiletic purpose and allegorical
conventions does not sufficiently explain either
its critical esteem or its theatrical popularity.
Fortunately, Eliot has enlarged upon his original
assessment in a later work.3 He argues that re-
ligious drama, to be successful, must combine its
doctrine with "ordinary dramatic interest."
Everymanfulfills his requirement:
the religiousand the dramaticare not merely com-
bined,but whollyfused. Everymanis on the one hand
the human soul in extremity, and on the other any
man in any dangerouspositionfromwhichwe wonder
how he is going to escape-with as keen interest as
that with which we wait for the escape of the film
hero,boundand helplessin a hut to whichhis enemies
are about to set fire.
The comparison isolates rather succinctly the
quality which has given Everyman its eminence:
it is not only perfect allegory; it tends also to be
high drama. This fusion of religious doctrine and
ordinary dramatic interest results directly from
the play's fundamental formal principle. 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. Through this twofold
function, the pattern simultaneously deepens the
doctrinal content and evokes the indispensable
emotional tension.4
The structural pattern of Everyman is sugges-
tively defined by the somewhat superfluous pro-
logue and epilogue. The Messenger, who intro-
duces the play, reiterates a single point, "How
transytory we be all daye."5 Although he insists
that the play's matter and intent are "wonderous
precyous," his speech is essentially negative. He
focuses on the inevitability of death and the
destructiveness of sin. His outline of the action
anticipates but one of its phases, for he mentions
465
only the loss to man of those associates and at-
tributes that "fade ... as floure in Maye." He
concludes by announcing God's call for a "gen-
erall rekenynge," an event which must inspire
despair in anyone who, like Everyman, has found
life and sin "full swete."6 The Doctor's epilogue
provides a remarkable contrast. In addition to
l "Four ElizabethanDramatists,"SelectedEssays (Lon-
don, 1951),p. 111.A. C. Cawley's"Introduction"to his edi-
tion of Everyman(Manchester:ManchesterUniv. Press,
1961)containsthe best generaldiscussionof the play's texts,
meaning,style, versification,and staging. Cawleyalso con-
veniently summarizes(pp. x-xiii) and providesa bibliog-
raphy of (pp. xxxii-xxxiii)the ratherconclusivearguments
for the priorityof Elckerlijc.Sincemy focusin this study is a
formalanalysisof the Englishtext, I have generallyignored
the vexed questionof its relationshipto the Dutch play.
2 "Timeand the Timelessin Everyman and Dr. Faustus,"
CollegeEnglish,xxII (Oct. 1960),9.
3Religious Drama: Medievaland Modern (New York,
1954).
4 The structureof Everyman has beenexaminedby Cleanth
Brooksand RobertB. Heilman(Understanding Drama,New
York, 1948,pp. 104-108)and by LawrenceV. Ryan ("Doc-
trine and Dramatic Structure in Everyman,"Speculum,
xxxII, 1957, 722-735). Brooksand Heilmandiscerna four-
part structuralscheme:(I) the fruitlessconflictwith Death,
(II) the failureto find a companion,(III) the changefrom
despairto joy through the arrivalof worthy companions,
and (IV) the new complicationarisingfromthe desertionby
the worthy companions.In their view, the new complica-
tion is resolvedwhen Everymandies, "completelysobered
and maturedby his experience"(p. 105).Ryan distinguishes,
roughly,a three-partscheme:"Structurally,the play turns
on two climaxes,growingout of the abandonmentof the hero
by two theologicallyand dramaticallydistinct groupsof
'friends'in whom he has placed his confidence"(p. 725).
Both analyses presentcertain fundamentaldifficulties.Be-
cause of their emphasis on drama rather than doctrine,
Brooksand Heilmanisolateepisodeswhere"thesermontakes
precedenceof the drama"(p. 106).Ryan, in seeingthe theol-
ogy of the play as the sole sourceof its "characters,struc-
ture, significance,and even its dramatic impressiveness"
(p. 723), tends to obscurethe dramaticartistry.In calling
the later desertiona dramaticclimax,both analysesdistort
its significanceas a specificstage in a continuouspatternof
action.
6 All citationsto Everymanare to the text establishedby
J. Q. Adams,ChiefPre-Shakespearean Dramas(Cambridge,
Mass., 1924),pp. 288-303.
6 As Cawleypointsout (p. 29), this prologuehas no paral-
lel in Elckerlijc,and it erroneouslyanticipatesthe appear-
ance of "Iolyte"and "Pleasure."Suchfacts prompthim to
suggest that "it may have been written by someoneother
than the translator."Yet someintroductionseemsnecessary
to focus the attention of the spectatorsand to identify the
first speaker.Furthermore,the speechhas considerabledra-
matic value. It effectively anticipates the play's message
withoutfully expoundingit, and it requestswithoutnegat-
ing the emotionbasic to the play's openingscenes,
466 "Everyman": A Structural Analysis
pointing the moral for the less discerning, the
Doctor absolves the prologue's negative empha-
sis by stressing the positive elements of the sec-
ond half of the play and by focusing upon a char-
acter-concept not mentioned in the prologue: the
Good Deeds which do not desert man. The Mes-
senger leads up to the threat posed by God's call
for a reckoning, but the Doctor concludes by
affirming Everyman's ultimate end:
he that hath his accountehole and sounde,
Hye in heuenhe shall be crounde.(916-917)
The prologue and epilogue clearly distinguish a
two-part structure. One movement, a falling
action, occupies approximately the first half of
the play; it traces Everyman's decline in fortune
from Death's entrance, which shatters the ap-
parent serenity of his life, to the depth of his
despair, where he can foresee only eternal damna-
tion. The second movement, a rising action,
carries him from this nadir to his final salvation,
symbolized by the words of the welcoming
Angel.7 Detailed analysis reveals this two-part,
descent-ascent structural pattern as the basic
principle of the play's organization. More impor-
tantly, such an analysis also shows how this
structure enriches the experience to which it
gives form.
The first movement of the action begins at the
highest possible schematic level, out of time and
the world, in God's presence. In the medieval
world-view, with its series of concentric spheres,
the presence of the Prime Mover postulates in-
finite height. But the action already suggests de-
scent: God observes Earth and its creatures.
Moreover, like the speech of the Messenger,
God's words are wholly negative in force, imply-
ing only the difficulty to come, omitting any in-
dication of hope for mankind. In God's eyes, men
are blind to spiritual matters and drowned in sin.
Having forsaken their God for worldly prosper-
ity, they grow steadily worse each day. Man has
even forgotten the love which God manifested in
suffering for him. But man's rejection has been to
his own disadvantage because God now plans to
"Haue a rekenynge of euery mannes persone"
(46). The whole speech thus moves logically to its
conclusion where God sees that He "nedes on
them . . . must do iustyce" (61). The "majesty"
stressed in the first line connotes only power; its
nature is characterized by the harshness of such
words as "ryghtwysnes, the sharpe rod" (28).
God speaks only in His aspect of righteousness
and justice: He is the God of Wrath. God the
merciful is evoked only by the reference to His
Passion, and in this context the Passion serves as
one more justification for the threatening tone.
The conception of God thus established domi-
nates the whole first half of the play and becomes
explicit in such devices as Everyman's use of
"Adonay" (245), "hye kynge" (330), and "hyest
Iupyter of all" (407) to identify his antagonist.
The falling action proceeds without interrup-
tion as the scene itself shifts from Heaven to
Earth, where Death confronts the unsuspecting
Everyman. Everyman's initial position in the
pattern of descent can be precisely determined.
He is, as his failure to expect or recognize Death
demonstrates, totally unaware of any values
higher than those of world and time. From this
limited point of view he stands at the highest
possible level: he has all the wealth he can pos-
sibly want; he has friends and kindred on whom,
he believes, he can rely. The sudden pressure of
eternity brought to bear on him forces him down-
ward toward death, the very antithesis of his cri-
teria for success. Thus the ubiquitous medieval
metaphor of the Wheel of Fortune assists the cos-
mological scheme in symbolizing the descending
pattern of action. Everyman rests at the top of
the Wheel, at the apex of Fortune.8 Death's
visit turns the Wheel. But even more shocking
for Everyman is Death's demand that he make a
reckoning to God. For while Everyman's own
point of view is purely temporal, God's opening
speech has already specified an entirely different
point of view. Everyman's distorted values asso-
ciate him with the generic "Euery man"'of God's
condemnation. In the first of the play's numerous
self-echoes, Everyman's language emphasizes his
vulnerability: his reaction to the demand for a
reckoning ("This blynde mater troubleth my
wytte," 102) unconsciously repeats God's image
in "Of ghostly syght the people be so blynde"
(25). The downward action thus aims even be-
yond loss of life. Everyman's lack of prepared-
7 The
two-part movement in Everyman may also be dis-
tinguished by comparing the play with a Scottish narrative
poem of ca. 1480-85, "The Thrie Tailes of the Thrie Priests
of Peblis." The third tale tells the same story, but the action
in the poem focuses almost exclusively on the ever-increasing
decline in the hero's fortunes, with only a perfunctory con-
clusion to restore him to his original position. H. deVocht, an
advocate for the priority of Everyman over Elckerlijc sug-
gests that this poem may be the source from which the drama-
tist worked (Everyman: A ComparativeStudy of Texts and
Sources, Materials for the Study of the Old English Drama,
n. s. xx, Louvain, 1947, pp. 192-201). The poem is available
in Early Popular Poetry of Scotland and the Northern Border,
ed. David Laing, Re-arranged and Revised by W. Carew
Hazlitt (London, 1895), I.127-168.
8 See Cawley, p. xxi, on Everyman's riches and friends
being gifts of fortune.
 Thomas F. Van Laan
ness directs him toward an even lower depth,
eternal damnation.
Of this unavoidable implication, Everyman is
not entirely aware. Although Death's visit
troubles him, he still retains his earthly supports,
and he now turns to these for help. The ensuing
episodes define the falling action in a variety of
ways, the first and most obvious of which deline-
ates, in the loss of his worldly resources, Every-
man's descent on the Wheel of Fortune. The
effect which gives this whole section unity is
visually symbolized by each of Everyman's
earthly supports turning his back on him after
denying him assistance. Everyman becomes
more and more isolated and defenceless, a process
heightened by the irony which has each deserter
promise him aid before finally refusing it. Ulti-
mately, he has nothing left; even his last resort,
his Goods, proves to be no more than a tempo-
rary loan. In a further irony, the trussed, locked,
and sacked Goods can also turn his back on the
sinking hero. Death has left the stage, but his
continued authority asserts itself through
Goods's words, as "What! wenest thou that I am
thyne .. . ? / Naye, Eueryman; I saye no. / As
for a whyle I was lente the" (437-440) carefully
echoes Death's mocking "What! wenest thou thy
lyue is gyuen the, / And thy worldely goodes
also. .. ? / Nay, nay; it was but lende the"
(161-164).9
The second way in which these episodes have
significance is through the conversion of Every-
man's complacency into despair. This emotional
pattern is formed in part by his changing appeal
to his various associates. The length of the Fel-
lowship episode reflects Everyman's confidence;
he can withhold announcement of his precise
need until he has successfully extracted a promise
of assistance. The next episode, with Kindred and
Cousin, is much briefer because Fellowship's de-
sertion has shaken him. His anticipation is less
sure: he "trusted" that Fellowship would help
(203), he only "believes" that Cousin and Kin-
dred will (315). Therefore he is more direct
with them, telling them at once what he seeks,
as if already expecting their refusal. His an-
ticipation of the meeting with Goods indicates
a further decline: "If that my Good now helpe me
myght" (389). He quickly explains his situation
to Goods, and without awaiting a reply begins to
beg him for his help (409); close to hysteria, he
varies plea with insistence and then with re-
proach. When he finally turns to Good Deeds, he
has no confidence, no anticipation whatever:
"Alas! she is so weke / That she can nother go
nor speke" (482-483).
467
Between the episodes, Everyman remains
alone on the stage, in a visual representation of
his increasing loneliness. He expresses his reac-
tions in soliloquy, and the separate speeches are
linked by recurring motifs which emphasize the
growing despair. The first motif consists of his
abortive prayers. When Death leaves, Everyman
cries out, "Lorde, helpe, that all wrought!" (192).
Deserted by Fellowship, he echoes this cry with
"A, Lady helpe!" (304). With Kindred and
Cousin gone, he makes a third appeal: "A Iesus!
is all come hereto?" (378). The prayers are simi-
lar in their brevity and their vehemence; they
suggest a felt need to pray which is inhibited by
excessive worldliness. At the same time, the
three prayers create a progression of despair; he
turns from a vague appeal to the power which
now threatens him, to the Virgin, mankind's
intercessor with his Saviour, and finally to the
Saviour Himself. The order shows his growing
awareness that he needs a Saviour, but the tone
indicates little hope of moving Him. A second
motif which links these soliloquies is Everyman's
preoccupation with time. Death tells him he has
but one day to get his account in order, then
reminds him that "the tyde abydeth no man"
(143). Throughout this section, Everyman fear-
fully notices the rapid movement of time (192,
194). He applies the motif to the deserters, who
"fast awaye do . . . flee" (383). Abandoned by
Cousin, he pauses to mourn, then realizes that
"I lose my tyme here longer to abyde" (386).
His interview with Goods convinces him that his
whole life has been a "mysspendynge of tyme"
(436). This preoccupation not only verbalizes
the emotional pattern; by suggesting the sun
sinking in the west, it evokes a new symbol for
the falling action which the emotional pattern
helps to define. A third and final motif uniting
these soliloquies expresses, through the echoing
of related words, the only sensation which
Everyman can feel on his descent, that of his
abject suffering. His heart is sick (133), he fears
"endles sorowe" (172), his ever-worsening situa-
tion is a "dystresse" (391) and a "dysease" (403).
Even Goods, by no means compassionate,
characterizes Everyman's plight as a "dolour"
(433) and as "this grete sorowe and care"
(434). For Everyman, the suffering occasioned
by his increasing despair epitomizes itself in
a single forceful word, the "payne" which
unites all these related expressions, and echoes
throughout the desertion scenes (83, 191, 331).
The third way in which the desertion episodes
9 Parallelnotedby Cawley,p. xxvi.
468 "Everyman": A Structural Analysis
contribute to the falling action is the most im-
portant of all because it pertains to the more
encompassing point of view established in God's
opening speech. The very fact that Everyman
would seek help from such companions as Fellow-
ship and Goods shows that, in his present state,
he is damned.10 They represent aspects of life
which can only condemn him, as Goods, whose
name emphasizes the point through irony, tri-
umphantly insists. But the severity of Every-
man's peril is most conclusively established by
the play's allegory, which here works on more
than one level. These associates indeed represent
friends and relatives and wealth, but the charac-
terization given them points to a further, more
threatening level of meaning. Their specific at-
tributes combine with those of Everyman himself
to make up a complete roster of the Seven
Deadly Sins.
Everyman differs from the typical morality
play in the narrow focus which has apparently
excluded from the dramatis personae the usual
comic characters, the Vices and the Seven
Deadly Sins. But the Sins are certainly present in
spirit. In the opening speech, God describes man-
kind's serfdom to "the seuen deedly synnes
dampnable" (36). He enumerates "pryde, couey-
tyse, wrathe, and lechery" (37), adding "enuy" a
little later (50). The list is incomplete, but as
Morton Bloomfield has pointed out, the Middle
Ages was so saturated with the concept that even
partial enumeration effectively called attention
to the whole.1 Medieval spectators knew the
complete list, and they knew the typical charac-
teristics of each Sin, for they met with them
infrequently in other moralities and quite regu-
larly in the Sunday sermon. They would thus see
Everyman not only as a representative of them-
selves but also as a personification of Avarice.
Everyman's addiction to the other pleasures in
life is largely suggested by those with whom he
associates, but his complete submission to Ava-
rice dominates his own speech and behavior.
Death prepares for Everyman's entrance by
focusing on excessive love of riches (76). When
Everyman finally grasps the sinister import of
Death's visit, he offers a considerable bribe, one
thousand pounds, in an attempt to defer the
matter (121-123). All episodes in the first half of
the play move climactically toward the scene
with Goods, which delineates Everyman's most
vicious involvement. His riches lie heaped up
everywhere; he admits that he has loved Goods
all his life (388). As the main figure in a morality,
it is appropriate that he should personify what
by the fifteenth century was rapidly replacing
Pride as the chief of the Seven;"2as a man who
has reached the age when Death approaches, it is
equally appropriate that he should be possessed
by the Sin naturally inherent to old age.'3
God's speech and the presence of a fully
achieved personification of Avarice prepare for
details connoting other Sins. Fellowship's vary-
ing proposals contain much suggestive detail. He
begins bravely enough:
If ony haue you wronged,ye shall reuengedbe,
ThougheI on the groundebe slayne for the,
Thoughthat I knowebeforethat I sholde
dye! (218-220)
But when he realizes the ironic aptness of his
words, he hastily retreats:
And yet, yf thou wylte ete, and drynke,and
makegood chere,
Or haunt to womenthe lusty company,
I woldenot forsakeyou.... (272-274)
Finally, he settles upon a qualified version of his
original offer:
But and thou wylte murder,or ony man kyll,
In that I wyll helpe the with a good wyll. (281-282)
This vacillation gives Fellowship human reality;
the details fill out his personification of "sporte
and playe" (201). But there remains an excess
not entirely accounted for by this single level of
allegory. On the other hand, seen from the al-
ready established context of the Seven Deadly
Sins, the double focus on murder suggests Wrath;
revenge, the first thing that occurs to Fellowship,
is a specific attribute of Wrath.'4 The remaining
10Cf. Ryan, p. 725: Everyman's"excessivelove of passing
things has placed him in danger of hell-fire."
11The Seven Deadly Sins (East
Lansing: Michigan State
College Press, 1952), p. 147.
12 On Avarice's
replacing Pride as Chief Sin, see The Castle
of Perseverance,where Sir Covetous has a scaffold of his own,
as do God, Flesh, World, and Devil, and has command over
the other Sins (cf. J. WilsonMcCutchan,"Covetousnessin
'The Castleof Perseverence',"Univ. of VirginiaStudies,rv,
1951,175-191).For this developmentin non-dramaticlitera-
ture, see Bloomfield,pp. 74, 95, 183, 189, 222-223, 237. For
this developmentin the sermons,see G. R. Owst,Literature
and Pulpit in MedievalEngland(Cambridge,England:Uni-
versityPress,1933),pp. 307-308.
13 This is a frequentmotif of the moralities.In TheCastle,
Sir Covetouswins backthe heroafterhe has grownso old as
to be immuneto the otherSins.In HenryMedwall'sNature,
Man at first ignoresCovetousness,but his fellow Sins have
no fear becausethey knowMan will turn to him "whanhys
hed waxethhore"(I.1243f.). For this motifin non-dramatie
literatureand in the sermons,see Bloomfield,pp. 76, 165,
432; Owst,p. 535.
14 See Owst, p. 460. In Chaucer's"Parson'sTale" (The
PoeticalWorksof Chaucer,ed. F. N. Robinson,Boston,1933,
x [i], 570), advisingmurderis treatedas a majorcharacter-
istic of Wrath.
 Thomas F. Van Laan
details of eating, drinking, and frequenting ques-
tionable women denote Gluttony and Lechery,
two Sins which, as here, are normally coupled in
medieval accounts.15 These two Sins reappear in
the refusals of Cousin and Kindred. Cousin "had
leuer fast brede and water / All this fyue yere and
more" than accompany Everyman (346-347),
and the speech loses some of its point if the impli-
cation of Gluttony is ignored. Kindred re-intro-
duces Lechery by offering Everyman, in lieu of
his own accompaniment, his maid, who, since she
loves to go to feasts, "there to be nyse" (361), is
evidently no Beatrice. Further details, otherwise
obscure, readily suggest Sloth and Envy. Cous-
in's curious excuse, "I haue the crampe in my
toe" (356), does more than enliven him. Sloth is a
sin of the feet: Sloth, or the slothful man, suffers
from gout; sometimes his feet are gnawed.16
Cousin's cramp is wholly consistent with this
tradition. Goods, whom Everyman had loved
best, viciously upbraids him, rejoicing in his
misfortune, glad that Everyman has brought
himself into jeopardy: "I must nedes laugh; I can
not be sadde" (456). Chaucer's Parson clarifies
the significance of Goods's jubilation: "The sec-
onde spece of Envye is joye of oother mannes
harm.""7
Pride is the only one of the Seven Sins not
evoked by specific verbal details. But Everyman,
the personification of Avarice, is as hero equally
likely to embody Pride, because this Sin, the
original leader, continues to retain its prominence
even while Avarice develops in importance,18and
one of the principal sources of Pride is wealth like
that of Everyman's.19 His costume establishes a
visual reference to Pride. Death's accusing ques-
tion, "Whyder arte thou goynge / Thus gayly?"
(85-86) indicates, as T. W. Craik has argued, the
nature of Everyman's dress,20 and ostentatious
clothing always signifies Pride.21 Everyman's
adherence to Pride shows most clearly, however,
in his early complacent acceptance of worldly
life, a state which typifies the attitude Pride tries
to instill in his victims.22 Lacking any notion of
another, superior life, or of the death which links
the two, Everyman imagines, in effect, that he
can live forever; he suffers from Pride of Life, a
condition perfectly exemplified by the king in the
morality of that name:
I schal lyue ever mo
& crounber as kinge;
I ne may neuerwit of wo;
I lyue at my likinge.23
Everyman naturally shows less and less evidence
of pride as the falling action increasingly abases
469
him; but this does not absolve his original guilt.
He continues to be Pride's victim and thus its
representation.24
Recognition that all Seven Deadly Sins partici-
pate in the downfall of Everyman demands re-
examination of a view that the play fails to take
evil seriously because its world "is not invaded
by the Devil and his ministers, the personified
vices."25 On the contrary, this indirect represen-
tation of the Sins asserts an especially serious
concept of evil. In other moralities the amusing
farce of the personified Sins usurps all interest
due the serious characters. The direct representa-
tion of the Sins undoubtedly demonstrates the
active presence of evil, but their amusing activity
threatens to obscure the homiletic purpose.
Everymaneliminates this possible danger through
the creation of two levels of allegory. The Sins are
subsumed to the serious purpose because they are
realized only on the second level and by the same
characters who denote the friendship, family,
15Bloomfield, passim.
16See Bloomfield, pp. 177, 181,
221, 433.
17
Chaucer, x (I), 492. On this, the reverse aspect of Envy,
see also Owst, p. 457.
18Even though Sir Covetous is the obvious Chief in The
Castle, it is nevertheless Pride who, in keeping with tradi-
tion, launches the first attack upon a Virtue. See the refer-
ences in n. 12.
19Chaucer, x (i),
450-456; Owst, pp. 308-312.
20The Tudor Interlude (Leicester: Leicester Univ.
Press,
1958), pp. 78-79. Since no concrete evidence concerning
Everyman's costume exists, Death's line may in fact charac-
terize only his attitude. For confirmation of Craik's inter-
pretation, see Fellowship's hint that Everyman is in the
habit of bribing his friends with new clothes (292) and
Everyman's later reference to his body's delight in going
"gay and fresshe" (614). Moreover, gay and colorful array
is perfectly in keeping with Everyman's personality; it
would enhance the developing emotional effect, for the
costume must remain while the hero's inner gaiety dimin-
ishes; such a costume is especially necessary for the full sig-
nificance of the contrast achieved when Everyman changes
into the garment of sorrow (643).
21 Chaucer, x (1), 412; Owst, pp. 82, 404-407. Cf., in Med-
wall's Nature, Pride's characterization as the typical dandy.
22 Cf. Nature (i.955 ff.) where Pride flatters Man's superior
intelligence.
23 The Pride of Life, 11.175-178, ed. Alois Brandl, in Quel-
len des weltlichenDramas in England vor Shakespeare(Strass-
burg, 1898). Bloomfield (p. 188) refers to a treatment of this
condition in religious prose.
4 The tradition of the Seven
Deadly Sins accommodates
their representation by characters with other and more
attractive names. Familiar in the sixteenth-century moral-
ity, this device occurs much earlier in religious prose (see
Owst, p. 96). Desertion of their victims by characters per-
sonifying the Sins is also a known motif, occurring in the
morality tradition as early as The Castle, where Mundus and
Sir Covetous desert Man once his complete submission ful-
fills their purpose. See also Bloomfield, pp. 204-205.
26Kaula, p. 11.
470 "Everyman": A Structural Analysis
riches, and mankind of the first. Everyman per-
sonifies two Sins, and the qualities which suggest
the other five are shared by the remaining char-
acters. This unsystematic distribution preserves
the first level of allegory even while the second
asserts itself. Since the function of the allegory is
to infuse the human action of the surface with
greater meaning, the order in which the two
levels are established has great structural impor-
tance. The first level, more apparent, shows
Everyman's over-reliance on worldly things; the
second, slower to achieve realization, sustains the
downward movement by particularizing this
over-reliance as submission to the Seven Deadly
Sins. God's opening characterization of man is
thus made concrete in the action. The threat
looms more ominously than ever before: unless
man can in some way release himself from sin he
must remain entirely devoid of hope. Everyman
is not only a willing victim of the Sins but he does
not even go beyond them in his search for help.
Deserted by Goods, Everyman summarizes the
preceding episodes in soliloquy (463-478), heav-
ily emphasizing the elements which illustrate his
descent. Then, without hope, he turns to Good
Deeds. She continually declares her willingness to
help him; but once again irony occurs, for the
visual image presents her as supine and possibly
shackled. She regretfully adds to each insistence
an admission of her sheer incapacity. Everyman
stares helplessly at his book of account, which
Good Deeds, in another image echoing God's
description of man's spiritual blindness, calls "a
blynde rekenynge in tyme of dystres" (508). She
verbalizes the pity which Everyman's increasing
hopelessness has instilled in the audience ("I am
sory of your fall; / And fayne wolde I helpe you,
and I were able," 514-515), and her choice of the
word "fall" to describe Everyman's progress
epitomizes the whole preceding action. The word
marks his complete defeat. He realizes that with-
out Good Deeds's help, he is "for euer dampned
indede!" (510). In terms of his descent on the
Wheel of Fortune, he stands at the point of
death; but within the wider frame of action that
encompasses the whole medieval cosmology,
death initiates for him an eternity of damnation.
The physical relationship of the speakers, which
forces Everyman to look downward, expresses
some of the significance. He has failed to look up
to Heaven; from his present vantage-point on
Middle-Earth, he can only look down into the
bottomless depths of Hell.
Yet this nadir is also his peripety. The motive
which has at last brought him to Good Deeds is
the realization of his own guilt, the first necessary
stage in the alleviation of spiritual blindness.
Goods's taunts have had their effect on him:
Than of my selfe I was ashamed;
And so I am worthy to be blamed.(476-477)
Good Deeds, whose name suggests a meaningful
change in Everyman's conception of "good," is
the first associate he seeks that never gave him
pleasure, the first that is in no way connected
with the Seven Deadly Sins. Awareness of his
desperate situation makes him continue to be-
seech even after Good Deeds assures him she is
helpless. As a result, she introduces him to
Knowledge, whose arrival institutes a rising
action which continues to the end of the play and
which counters the falling action by stressing
gain rather than loss, by resolving the various
motifs which had enacted the descent, and by
replacing the increasing despair of the first half
with a steadily mounting joy in both Everyman
and the spectators.
On one level of significance, the arrival of
Knowledge begins to resolve Everyman's fruit-
less search for help, a point made explicit when
her promise, "I wyll go with the, and be thy
gyde, / In thy moost nede to go by thy syde"
(522-523), echoes and eliminates Cousin's "I
wyll deceyue you in your moost nede" (358).26
On another level, her arrival symbolizes the full
growth in Everyman of the condition which she
personifies. Knowledge here means acknowledge-
ment of sin, or contrition.27 Everyman's clearer
vision is thus embodied in the action. His ac-
knowledgment of sin weakens the hold which the
Seven have on him and marks the first stage of
his redeeming penitence. Further, that Knowl-
edge comes from outside Everyman, that she is
unexpected, that her entrance is not prepared
for-all suggest that Everyman has finally re-
ceived the grace which he also needs to make his
penitence effective, the grace which had always
been available but which in his blindness he had
been unable to perceive. The coming of grace
modifies, for the first time, the opening picture of
an entirely wrathful God.
Other motifs of the falling action are resolved
as Knowledge leads Everyman through the vital
stages of his penitence. The House of Confession
recalls a prior house, not fully realized, where
Goods lay piled up in corners. Knowledge's de-
scription of Confession as a "clensyng ryuere"
(536) recalls and resolves God's image of man as
"drowned in synne" (26). The complete absence
of soliloquies in the second half of the play, a
26Parallel noted by Cawley, p. xxv.
27DeVocht, pp. 59 ff.; Ryan, 728.
p.
 Thomas F. Van Laan
significant contrast to the falling action, helps to
dramatize Everyman's relief from utter loneli-
ness. More particularly, the three motifs of
Everyman's soliloquies-prayer, time, and pain
-here also resolve themselves. His prayers were
ejaculatory, restrained by his ignorance of spirit-
ual life. Once his redemption begins, however, he
can render a fully-developed, clearly-outlined
prayer (581-604), reuniting God, Christ, and the
Virgin, the separate foci of the former abortive
exclamations. He can now perceive and express
not only the threatening aspect of God's majesty
and righteousness but also the redeeming quality
of His love and mercy. The full control in this
prayer is revealed by its orderly movement
toward the intended climax, "I beseche you helpe
my soule to saue" (604). The motif of time is
similarly resolved. Time had been a destructive
force because so little remained and that little
diminished so rapidly. Everyman's once futile
desire for more time is fulfilled at last while he
performs his penitence, when Knowledge ap-
proves his effort with "Eueryman, God gyue you
tyme and space!" (608). Time thus changes to a
redemptive force, for within it Everyman purges
both his despair and his guilt. As he rises higher
in his ascent, he even rejects the misguided over-
emphasis he had accorded time; in the new atti-
tude toward his required pilgrimage, time, once
too rapid, moves too slowly: "And lette vs go
now without taryenge" (651). Fleeting time had
been one of the causes of his pain. Pain also
changes in meaning; it assumes a purpose that
makes it both necessary and glorious. Good
Deeds promises Everyman that Knowledge will
take him "where thou shalte hele the of thy
smarte" (528). When Confession presents him
with the scourge of penance that he must himself
administer, Everyman eagerly accepts it: "My
body sore punysshyd shall be" (612). He rejoices
in his self-imposed suffering because pain has also
become a redeeming force; it is now the medium
through which he can ultimately eliminate all
pain and suffering. The motif is entirely resolved
when Everyman, seeing Good Deeds released
from her shackles, vows to intensify his bodily
mortification (628).
These episodes have more than one function in
the rising action because of the play's double
level of allegory. On the first level, Everyman's
performance of the sacrament of penitence is an
image of his ascent toward salvation. Each
stage-contrition, confession, absolution, and
satisfaction-not only represents an act he must
go through to attain purification but also, since
the parts of the sacrament are successive and
471
cumulative, each stage carries him that much
closer to Heaven. Simultaneously, on the second
level of allegory, these episodes complete the
play's subdued version of the Psychomachia, the
battle between Sins and Virtues for the soul of
man.28From the second allegorical level emerge
the remedia which counteract and purge the
Seven Deadly Sins. Visual and verbal effects con-
note the elimination from Everyman of the two
Sins he has himself personified, Pride and Ava-
rice. Pride disappears when he accepts the guid-
ance of Knowledge and willingly undergoes the
program she imposes. Pride's defeat is visually
symbolized when, after his scourging, Everyman
changes his former gay costume for the garment
of sorrow. The new garment represents contrition
(645) and thus symbolizes Humility, the opposite
of Pride. Avarice is defeated verbally when
Everyman completes his penitence by making
a will:
In almes halfe my good I wyll gyue with
my handestwayne
In the way of charytewith good
entent .... (699-700)
The kind of Charity characterized by alms-giving
belongs, along with Humility, to one category of
remedia prevalent in the moralities and non-
dramatic moral treatises, the personified Moral
Virtues, each of which opposes and defeats its
corresponding Sin.29
Everyman also dramatizes a less familiar but
more significant type of remedium. The Moral
Virtues, a poetic device allegorizing a fait ac-
compli, show by their presence that the Sins have
been driven out, but they prohibit a dramatiza-
tion of the change in the sinner himself and are
thus discontinuous with the human action. The
second type of remedium involves acts rather
than personifications; it includes identification
with events in the Christian narrative, such as
28E.
N. S. Thompson("The EnglishMoralPlays,"
Transactions
of theConnecticut
Academyof ArtsandSciences,
xiv, 1910,353) mentionswithoutdevelopingthe idea the
ofa Psychomachia
presence inEveryman.Cf.deVocht, p. 187.
29The MoralVirtuesshouldbe distinguished fromthe
well-known SevenCardinalVirtues,whichdo not satisfac-
torily correspondto the Sins. The list of MoralVirtueswas
neveras rigidlyformulatedas thatof theSins.Fora typical
list, see The Castle,whichpresentsMeekness,Patience,
Charity,Abstinence, Chastity,Industry,and Largitas.In
Nature,"almesdede"replacesLargitas and"goodbesynes"
Industry.Chaucer's Parsonlists "humylitie,or mekenesse"
(opp.Pride),love(Charity; opp.Envy),"Debonairetee and
Pacience"(opp. Wrath),"fortitudo or strengthe"(opp.
Sloth),"misericorde,pitee, and largesse"(opp.Avarice),
abstinence(opp. Gluttony),"chastiteeand continence"
(opp. Lechery).
472 "Everyman": A Structural Analysis
the Passion, and with elements of devotion, such
as the Pater Noster, which symbolically embody
the forces necessary to defeat the Sins.30 Such
remediahave greater value for drama because, as
acts, they call for a performer; someone must
subscribe to the redeeming value of the Passion,
someone must recite the prayer. In Everyman,
the defeat of the Sins emerges through the human
action rather than in conjunction with it because
the hero himself performs the remedial acts of
confession3' and penitence.32This second type of
remedium also accounts for the "digression" on
priesthood, which is in reality a dramatically
pertinent focusing upon all seven sacraments,
each of which was traditionally interpreted as the
opposite of a specific Sin.33The importance of the
episode derives from its naming of the sacra-
ments (722-727), which effects an incantatory
defeat of the Sins. The priest is praised because it
is he who administers these remedia, thus earning
the title of "surgyon that cureth synne deedly"
(744). That the priest is seen as higher than the
angels (749) firmly indicates the supreme value of
the seven sacraments as remedia. They are the
ordinary man's closest earthly association with
Heaven, and the last of them, which Everyman
exits to receive, provides the link between physi-
cal and spiritual life. Knowledge's fear that some
priests may be corrupt (751-763) re-introduces
two Sins, Avarice and Lechery, thus establishing
a more precise link between Sins and remedia.
When Everyman returns, having "made true
satysfaccyon" (770), the final step of an impor-
tant stage in the rising action is achieved: the
expulsion from his soul of the Sins which had
helped carry him downward toward damnation.
Everyman's penitence liberates and strength-
ens Good Deeds and wins him the additional
companions, Beauty, Discretion, Strength, and
Five-Wits. Their arrival visualizes the accom-
plished purgation of sin and the resulting restora-
tion of natural gifts. By completing the acquisi-
tion of useful companions, their arrival also re-
solves Everyman's earlier useless search. The
subsequent desertion seems to parallel the deser-
tions in the first half of the play, and Everyman
momentarily reacts with the same show of de-
spair. But his despair here suggests only that he
has not yet achieved the peak to which he must
rise. Moreover, the despair of the falling action
had steadily increased in force, while here it is
transformed into acceptance and understanding.
This despair is as ironic as was the joy with which
Everyman greeted the easy affirmations of Fel-
lowship, and works in the same way to emphasize
the growth of its opposite emotion. The desertion
by his natural attributes teaches him the folly of
relying upon any earthly supports, worthwhile or
not; these companions, far better than those he
sought in vain, can ultimately contribute little of
value. Strength talks a little too much like Fel-
lowship (684-685), while the contrast of the
frivolity of Beauty (801) and Strength (809,
824-825) to the new understanding of Everyman
affirms the extent to which the gift of grace has
raised him above his natural gifts. Thus his state-
ment that "all thynge fayleth, saue God alone"
(841), touched as it is with despair, manifests
rather the wisdom and joy of his new awareness.
The exit of his bodily attributes visually isolates
his strengthened Good Deeds, the evidence of his
purified soul. This desertion, which eliminates
the earthly and temporal, shows that Everyman
is to leave world and time, to continue his rise
above and beyond them to the eternal Heaven,
the point from which the falling action began.
The new understanding which Everyman
reveals during the second desertion is sympto-
matic of the character change accompanying and
partially realizing the rising action. One of the
evidences of satisfaction, the final stage of peni-
tence, is the penitent's "yevynge of good conseil
and comfort, goostly and bodily, where men han
nede."34 Everyman's ultimate ability to exhibit
this proof of satisfaction constitutes the most
significant indication of growth in his dramatic
character. The man who has persistently sought
advice and information becomes himself an in-
structor. It is Everyman who, once unfamiliar
with death, explains its nature to Beauty (794-
799). And it is Everyman who, at the point of his
own death, can clarify his entire experience for
the spectators, giving them spiritual counsel as
he does so:
Take example,all ye that this do here or se,
How they that I loued best do forsakeme,
Exceptemy GoodDedes that bydethtruely.(867-869)
With his opened eyes now turned ever up-
wards, Everyman commends his soul into God's
hands, then enters his grave and eternal life.
The final speech of Knowledge (888-893) brings
80For the various aspects of Christ's Passion interpreted
as remedia, see The Castle, 11.2083 ff. (cf. Chaucer, x [i], 255
ff.). Each of the seven parts of the Pater Noster was con-
ceived as a remedium for a specific Sin. See Thompson, p.
334; Hardin Craig, English Religious Drama of the Middle
Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 338.
31
Bloomfield, pp. 97-99, 149; Chaucer, x (i), 958 if.
82The whole point of the sermon by Chaucer's Parson is
the remedial function of penitence.
3 Bloomfield, pp. 214, 217.
J4Chaucer, x (I), 1030.
 Thomas F. Van Laan
to a close the temporal phase of the action; but it
already looks upward to the spiritual phase, for
Knowledge hears angels singing, making "grete
ioy and melody / Where Euerymannes soule
receyued shall be." The play ends with the
speech of the Angel who welcomes Everyman as
"excellente electe spouse to Iesul" (894). The
Angel's "Here aboue" (895) denotes the goal of
the rising action, "the heuenly spere" (899),
where further rise is impossible, and continuous
movement freezes in eternal stasis. The Angel's
speech does more than specify the ultimate desti-
nation of Everyman: it also rounds off the entire
pattern of action by echoing and resolving God's
opening words. There the emphasis had been on
justice and potential damnation. In the speech of
the Angel, which focuses upon Everyman's
"crystall clere" reckoning and consequent salva-
tion, the emphasis is all on the other aspect of
God, the mercy which assumes angelic form to
welcome not only Everyman the individual but
also every man who imitates his purification.
The structure of Everyman thus constitutes a
complete and continuous pattern, both move-
ments of which receive simultaneous visual sum-
mation at the end of the play when Everyman
enters his grave to attain Heaven.35 The pattern
gives value to the play through its function of
organizing the numerous elements of the action
into a form which provides order by keeping each
element in its proper sequence and provides
coherence by according each element its proper
amount of emphasis. The pattern further suc-
ceeds in enriching the play's materials by balanc-
ing the rising action against the falling action:
instead of standing alone, the various elements,
in reflecting upon one another, work together to
produce a rather complex experience. Finally, the
structure is intimately involved in the play's
success as Eliot has defined it, for the descent-
ascent pattern intensifies both its doctrinal sig-
nificance and its dramatic effectiveness.
The structure forms the message on holy dying
into an illustrative pattern which not only fur-
ther clarifies the doctrinal import but also dem-
onstrates its validity. As Bernard Spivack has
shown in a valuable discussion of the moralities,
Christian allegory portrayed human action in
terms of a moral sequence. In describing human
life, the allegorist "was concerned with charting
the progressive stages of ascent or decline," for
ascent metaphorically represented the develop-
ment of virtue within the human soul, while
descent represented the aggravation of vice. In
those moralities which dramatize the Psycho-
machia, the moral sequence ordinarily manifests
473
itself as a pattern in which the hero begins in
relative innocence, falls into a state of degeneracy
when corrupted by evil, and finally rises to his
salvation when converted by the forces of good, a
pattern which is sometimes repeated for empha-
sis, as in The Castle of Perseveranceand Nature.36
Everyman treats only the coming of death, but
the dramatist has adopted as his disciplining
form the same pattern which had proved so fruit-
ful for the ordered dramatization of the whole
pilgrimage. In Everyman this pattern has even
further significance; it makes the message more
complex by going beyond the surface doctrinal
level to the core of Christian theology. The mo-
ralities teach man's redemption, but more par-
ticularly they teach his redemption through
Christ. Everyman emphasizes this important
distinction through its numerous thematic refer-
ences to the Passion.37 The extensive references
make relevant to the meaning of the play another
version of the same descent-ascent pattern, the
Christic action, in which Christ comes from
Heaven to assume human form, suffers death in
His Crucifixion, descends into Hell, returns to
worldly life through His Resurrection, and ulti-
mately re-ascends to Heaven.38 The Christic
action is pertinent to the meaning of Everyman,
for it alone has made possible the salvation there
enacted, and in Christian thought the successful
pilgrimage of the individual analogously recre-
ates that action. The play's references to the
Passion show that the parallel between the
Christic action and Everyman's progress is ex-
plicit. During the first half of the play, when
Everyman is seen as a victim of Adam's fall (145),
the significance of the Passion is that Everyman
has separated himself from its redeeming value.
But in the second half, when the references in-
crease, Everyman's progress becomes what that
of every Christian must be, an imitation of
35Cf. Cawley'ssuggestionsconcerningthe originalstaging,
pp. xxix-xxx. The "house"of Confessionwas probablya
castlewith heavenlocatedat its top. The grave,then, would
be at the bottom, "so that Everymancould enact his own
salvationby enteringhis graveand ascendingfromit to the
heightsof the 'heuenlyspere'(899)"(p. xxx).
36Shakespeareand tIe Allegoryof Evil (New York: Co-
lumbiaUniv. Press, 1958),pp. 101-103.Cf. David M. Bev-
ington, From Mankindto Marlowe(Cambridge:Harvard
Univ. Press,1962),p. 117,passim.The patternis occasionally
made explicit. In Nature, Reason points out that through
acceptingthe Virtues,Man is "lykely to aryse / From the
vale of syn whycheys full of derknes/ towardthe contem-
placyon of lyght that ys endles" (Nature, II.1384-86).
7 See 11. 29-31, 512, 563-565, 582-585, 603, 751-754,
812, 882.
38On the Christicpattern, see WilliamF. Lynch, S. J.,
Christand Apollo(New York, 1960),pp. 13, 15, 40-41.
474 "Everyman": A Structural Analysis
Christ.39The structural pattern thus illustrates
how the fallen hero rises through the aid of and in
imitation of Christ's Passion, defeating his own
sins as Christ had defeated all sin.
The fundamental dramatic pleasure evoked by
the play derives from the tensions of the human
action, but because these tensions are formed
into and intensified by the descent-ascent pat-
tern, a performance of Everyman arouses in its
spectators an experience of universal application.
Maud Bodkin has discerned in Coleridge's Rime
of the Ancient Mariner a pattern similar to that in
Everyman.40The importance of this pattern in
Coleridge's poem, according to Miss Bodkin's
analysis, is that it coincides with a frequently-
recurring emotional rhythm within the human
consciousness, the experience which Jung has
called the psychological process of mental and
spiritual rebirth. This is the process in which the
individual sinks to a state of hopelessness, frus-
tration, and spiritual death, but finds there the
possibilities which, when acted upon, permit his
ascent to a new stage of mental and spiritual
growth.41 A performance of Everyman effects a
result for its spectators similar to that which
Miss Bodkin receives from a reading of the An-
cient Mariner. The performance recreates in the
consciousness of its audience an emotional
rhythm which is familiar, universal, meaningful,
and, since it carefully alters fully-aroused pity
and fear to sheer joy, extremely pleasurable.
The structural pattern of Everyman thus in-
tensifies both the religious and the ordinary
dramatic interests by expanding the focus of the
action to universal dimensions. But as Eliot has
argued, in Everyman the two interests are fused.
The fusion exists because the structural pattern
and the experience of the hero are one. The dra-
matic tension emanates from the evolving situa-
tion of the human hero, whose progress in terms
of sin and redemption-the religious message of
the play-establishes the pattern of descent and
ascent. In turn, the more universal pleasure
which the spectators derive from the vivifying of
a potential emotional rhythm forces their sympa-
thetic participation in all phases of the progress
which stimulates it. The pleasure thus enforces
the homiletic message because the doctrine's
most persuasive advocate is the individual spec-
tator's desire to give reality and permanence to
the exaltation temporarily instilled by the per-
formance of the play. In creating successful
allegory, then, the dramatist has simultaneously
and of necessity created successful drama.
As its presence in other moralities suggests, the
pattern which gives form to the material of
Everyman recurs frequently in literature.42 But
pattern is, of course, an abstract concept; like all
abstractions, it can have no real existence apart
from its concrete realization in some specific
work. For this reason, it is not the mere presence
of the pattern which gives value but the way in
which the dramatist has employed it. The superi-
ority of Everyman to other moralities lies in the
art of the dramatist, his ability to realize the
many complexities in an apparently simple ma-
terial. The style of the play is an image of that
artistry. While obviously less mature than the
dramatic styles developed a century later, it
merits the high praise in Harley Granville-
Barker's description of it as "workmanlike."43In
"its plain, clear diction," it effects, as Cawley
notes, a "triumph of compromise" between the
aureate and the overly-colloquial styles of the
late fifteenth century. Cawley further establishes
the value of the play's style when he sees it fulfill-
ing one of Eliot's foremost requirements for dra-
matic verse: "the freely rhythmical verses of
Everyman harmonize with its neutral style, so
that we find ourselves 'consciously attending, not
to the poetry, but to the meaning of the poe-
try'."44 But the primary virtue of the style of
Everyman is the quality through which it fulfills
Eliot's plea for "a form of verse in which every-
thing can be said that has to be said."45 The
versification ranges from the brief colloquial lines
which embody the tensions in Everyman's ex-
changes with such characters as Death and
Goods, to the formal line-groups which expand
39 See especially11.561-565:"Hereshall you receyuethat
scourgeof me, / Whicheis penauncestrongethat ye must
endure/ To remembrethy Sauyourwas scourgedfor the
/ With sharpescourges,and suffredit pacyently;/ So must
thou, or thou scape that paynful pylgrymage."On the
Christian'simitation of the Christic pattern, see Lynch,
p. 50.
40
ArchetypalPatternsin Poetry (New York, 1958), pp.
52-53: "Withinthe image-sequencesexaminedthe pattern
appearsof a movement,downward,or inwardtoward the
earth's centre, or a cessation of movement-a physical
change which. . .appears also as a transition toward
severed relation with the outer world, and, it may be,
towarddisintegrationand death.The elementin the pattern
is balancedby a movementupwardand outward-an expan-
sion or outburstof activity, a transitiontowardredintegra-
tion and life-renewal."
41
Bodkin, pp. 50-51, 69-70.
42Cf. Northrop Frye, Anatomyof Criticism(Princeton:
PrincetonUniv. Press, 1957). Frye'saccountsof the quest-
romance(p. 187) and comedy(p. 171) give some suggestion
of the universalityof this pattern.
43 On DramaticMethod(New
York, 1956), pp. 42-44.
4 Cawley,pp. xxiv, xxviii.
6 "Poetryand Drama,"On Poetryand Poets (New York,
1957),p. 78.
 Thomas F. Van Laan 475

with the more elaborate shape of summary (463
ff.), doctrine (573 ff.), prayer (581 ff.), and con-
clusion (894 ff.). The neutral language expresses
the situation clearly and succinctly; at the same
time it accommodates without strain the intro-
duction of the many proverbs that, spoken prin-
cipally by the hero, lend him universality and
charm, or the images of blindness and the refer-
ences to time, pain, and Christ's Passion which
deepen both emotion and meaning, or the occa-
sional unobtrusive words like "fall" and "here
aboue" which crystallize the meaningful struc-
ture.
As with style, so with structure. The artistry
which finds a style expressive of its content finds
and develops as well a structural equivalent.
Everymansurpasses numerous other works which
achieve form through some variation of a de-
scent-ascent pattern because the dramatist has
seen much of the pattern's potential and has
given it dramatic solidity. In Everyman, the
pattern can intensify the religious significance
because the dramatist has perceived and utilized
the parallel with the Christic action. The pattern
can arouse profound psychological response be-
cause through it the dramatist has made his
allegory the product of a human action that, in
its tensions and ironies, demands the commit-
ment of all human beings. It is, in the final analy-
sis, the fusion of artistic creativity with poten-
tiality of pattern which makes the parable of
Everyman a prime example of great religious
drama.
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
New Brunswick, New Jersey

'TIS THE CUSTOMof pedagogues to be eternally

thundering in their pupil's ears, as they were
pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the
pupil is only to repeat what the others have said.
Now I would have a tutor to correct this error,
and, that at the very first he should according
to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the
test, permitting his pupil himself to taste things,
and of himself to discern and choose them,
sometimes opening the way to him, and some-
times leaving him to open it for himself; that is, I
would not have him alone to invent and speak,
but that he should also hear his pupil speak in
turn.-Montaigne, "Of the Education of Chil-
dren," Cotton trans.