Everyman Loss of Youth, Loss

Everyman

Loss of youth, loss of life: J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" and the Anonymous Medieval Morality Play "Everyman"

Both the narratives of "Peter Pan" and "Everyman" revolve around themes of loss. The losses in both J.M. Barrie's famous children's tale and the medieval morality allegory "Everyman" is both physical and psychological in their natures. The "Everyman" of the medieval loses his physical life and sense of emotional and social security in his friends, family, and his worldly goods. He dies to the life he once knew and loved. In Barrie's "Peter Pan," the title character experiences first the loss of his shadow, which is temporary, and then loses Wendy, the Lost Boys, and the other Darling children. The other children do grow up, unlike Peter, much to Peter's dissatisfaction.

Neither of these tales is depressing, however, because along with loss, both heroes gain something back. But while "Everyman," is stripped bare of his old life and illusions, which are replaced with a truer understanding of the divine, Peter's refusal to grow merely results in him recapturing his youth by associating with the next generation of Darling children. Peter refuses to lose his old illusions, refuses to grow up and lose his old life and childhood appearance, and thus refuses to validate the conventional adult journey of life, learning, and life's termination, as reflected in "Everyman."

Of course, some people in "Peter Pan" do lose a great deal. The Darling children lose their childhoods, and the physical freedoms of youth as well as the emotional joys of youth's relative freedom from cares. Yet while "Everyman's" loss is a sacred tale, founded upon the final redemption of the soul into God's all-embracing love and a validation of the losses of the beauties of youth and life, "Peter Pan" does not view the losses of the other children with nearly as positive and sanguine an eye. "Peter Pan," although in tone a light fable, has a darker message, that the beauty of childhood is essentially unable to be relived upon the earth, and this is a terrible thing, rather than simply one of life's passages and transitions. "Everyman," more mature in its perspective, despite its relatively young place in the history of the drama, does not even portray death as a bad character. Death acts in God's service, although he is frightening, to ease human beings on their final journey away from the cares as well as the joys of earth.

In contrast, the novel's depiction of death and old age the end of Peter Pan in the final paragraph of Chapter 17 is especially dark, and depicts no positive benefits to be gleaned from growing up. In fact, age withers and shrinks, rather than gives substance: "as you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago." As for the young woman's daughter, " Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret." Aging is common, as if it is bad manners or something poor and thoughtless to do, rather than a learning or growth experience. the, "every spring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."

Peter is so thoughtless he even occasionally forgets his childhood friend's granddaughter. This thoughtlessness is charming, while thoughtlessness and the loss of a sense of importance of one's true friends in "Everyman" is seen as terrible and sorrowful. Of course, Peter loses Wendy, but he easily, even cheerfully exchanges her for another image of a young girl, in the form of her daughter Jane, and continues to do so, as if the young, innocent women were interchangeable. The last word of the novel is 'heartless,' and that conveys the heart of the myth of Peter Pan, whether depicted on stage or in print. The loss of youth and one's youthful character is irreplaceable, and another, younger person is always waiting at the wings. In the play version of "Peter Pan," the stage directions read that the young Jane is played by the same actress as Wendy, further underlining the similarity of all young women in Peter's eyes. (Barrie, 1950) the myth of the boy who will not grow up suggests that no matter what the person's name, the girl remains the same in Peter's eyes, so long as he has a surrogate mother of some sort, Peter is happy.

Peter, unlike other children, is always young and never loses his youth to decrepitude and death. That is what makes him extraordinary and singular, that he can never lose his vitality by sheer force of will. "All children, except one, grow up," says the first line of Barrie's book. Peter's inability to experience loss is singular. In contrast, Everyman, the prologue to the play proclaims, along with the title "The Somonynge of Eueryman called it is, 5

That of our lyues and endynge shewes 6

How transytory we be all daye." (Scene 1) the human days are transitory on earth, unlike the days we will spend in eternity. This is true of all, even though Peter is forever young.

In the representational 'teaching nature of "Everyman," God, in case the viewing audience does not catch on, openly applies the sinning of Everyman to us all. (Abrams, 1981) He states that the audience, "they know me not for theyr God. 27

In worldely ryches is all theyr mynde; 28

They fere not my ryghtwysnes, the sharpe rod. 29

My lawe that I shewed, whan I for them dyed, 30

They forget clene / and shedynge of my blode rede. (Scene 3) Humans forget, but unlike for Peter Pan, this forgetfulness will be paid and reckoned with, the loss of memory and fidelity is not something that is a trifle.

Only Peter Pan and children have such carelessness in regards to being punished for forgetfulness and for disregarding the value of fidelity. Although Everyman is played by a single figure on the stage, he is meant to be all of us, over the course of our entire existence, including maturity. Over the course of the play, Everyman loses his kin, his friends, his worldly goods -- everything but his good deeds and God. In contrast, the Darling family's parents are always waiting for them, and there is no consequence for the children's departure -- for children, unlike the adult protagonists time seems infinite and losing is not a permanent state of affairs. Peter Pan's loss of a shadow is easily repaired, but the mature Captain Hook's loss of a hand is not, because he is an adult.

Everyman, of course, is not immortally youthful, nor do even his kin or children give him immortality. Only the good deeds he does in life are capable of aiding him. This, unlike the physical things of the world he cannot lose, although he must shed his worldly body, he does not shed his actions of good and ill in life. "Death refers directly to the Parable of the Talents when he demands from Everyman his "reckoning" or account book (page 367 line 102-109). Everyman must tell God "how thou hast spent thy life and in what wise." (Line 109) (Desmet, 1997) for "Everyman," all pleasure must be paid.