¶ … Everyman" fails as an exemplary text? "Everyman" is considered to be the quintessential allegorical play. "Everyman" has actors who are named after vices and virtues. The play's various roles represent concepts rather than unique and fully rounded individual characters. The play first depicts "Everyman," that is the representation of every soul, in a state of fear. Everyman fears what awaits him in the afterlife, as the personification of death awaits him. The main character learns that neither worldly goods nor false friends will help him in his journey. But despite the obvious, surface meaning the text often fails on a number of levels as an exemplary text. First of all, the viewer never...

The viewer only sees the poor figure begging his kin, his gold, and all on earth to accompany him on his journey through death. The vices seem to be other characters, rather than part of Everyman or his misguided way of living life. "Everyman" does not show the viewer of the play by Everyman's example, how not to live a moral life, or even how to live an immoral life. Rather, the text represents embodiments of different, external morals.
For instance, when Everyman errs, it is not in actions as a character, but in his ideas, which are quickly rebuked, "money maketh all ryght that is wronge," he says hopefully to his worldly goods. (Line 413, p. 13) Everyman speaks to…