The central theme to the medieval morality play Everyman is that on the final journey on the road of life, all companions of Everyman forsake him and only Good Deeds avail at the final judgment.In the beginning of the play God is upset with Everyman for embracing the seven deadly sins, so he calls for Death to seek out and punish every man who has sinned.When faced with this accosting, Everyman begs for company on the journey to the grave and Death allows Everyman to bring any companions who would be willing to go.Everyman then seeks out Fellowship, Kindred, and Goods, however, all three refuse to make the dangerous voyage to the grave with him.When Everyman calls upon Good Deeds, he answers weakly, for he is tied down by Ropes of Sin and is unable to help. Everyman then seeks out Good Deeds' sister, Knowledge, who leads Everyman to Confession. Confession then frees Good Deeds from Ropes of Sin and the three journey together to the grave.Other companions such as Strength, Beauty, and the Five Wits join the three on the road of life, however only Good Deeds is able to enter darkness with Everyman at the end.The title page ofEverymanannounces the play as a treatise of how the High Father of Heaven sendeth death to summon every creature to come and give account of their lives in this world, as well as informing the reader that this treatise is in manner of a moral play. The first two characters to enter areGod, in a high place on the stage or performance space, and aMessenger, who delivers a prologue. The Messengers prologue asks the audience to give their attention and listen to the matter (the content) of this moral play. The Messenger then announces the purpose of the play:

That of our lives and ending shows

How transitory we be all day. (l.5-6)

The play will show us our lives as well as our deaths (our ending) and how we humans are always (all day) transitory: changing from one state into another. Clearly, from the very beginning, the play is clear that it is to be a play about the human experience, as well as one with an absolute focus on morals.

The Messenger continues to tell the audience that, though sin initially might seem sweet, it will cause the soul to weep eventually, when you are dead and the body lieth in clay. He also informs us thatFellowship, Jollity,Strength, Pleasure andBeautywill fade away from us as flower in May.

God speaks next, and he immediately launches into a criticism of the way that all creatures are unkind to him (unkind, in this context, means undutiful not serving God properly). People are living without dread (fear) in the world without any thought of heaven or hell, or the judgment that will eventually come to them. In worldly riches is all their mind, God says. People are not mindful of Gods law, or his prohibition of the seven deadly sins (and, God reminds us, they are damnable they send you to hell).

Everyone is living purely for their own pleasure, God tells the audience, but yet they are not at all secure in their lives (nothing sure ). God sees everything decaying , and getting worse fro year to year (from year to year) and so has decided to have a reckoning of every mans person. This reckoning is a counting up, an audit, of peoples souls. Are they guilty or are they godly should they be going to heaven or hell?

God, disappointed in humankind, calls inDeath, his mighty messenger. Death says that he will travel throughout the world and cruelly outsearch both great and small. He is going to beset (perhaps meaning "attack" or "deal with") every man who liveth beastly (lives in a beastly way). People who love wealth and worldly goods will be struck by Deaths dart and will be sent to dwell in hell eternally unless, that is, Alms be his good friend. Alms means good deeds, and it is an important clue even at this stage that good deeds can save a sinner from eternal damnation.

God exits, and Death sees Everyman walking along. The text specifies that Everyman is finely dressed. Death approaches Everyman, touches him with his dart, and asks him where he is going, and whether he has forgotten his maker (the one who made him). Everyman asks Death who he is, but Death replies that he is sent to Everyman by God. Death then tells Everyman that he must take a long journey upon him, and bring with him his book of count (his account book as per Gods reckoning, above) which contains his good and bad deeds. Everyman must begin his journey towards death.

Everyman says that he is unready to make such a reckoning, and it is then that Death reveals to Everyman who he really is. Everyman is horrified: O Death, he says, thou comest when I had thee least in mind. Everyman then offers to give Death a thousand pound if he will postpone this whole matter till another day. Death, though, says that he places no value on gold, silver or riches, and asks Everyman to come with him.

Everyman pleads with Death: his book of reckoning, he says, is not ready. He begs for Gods mercy, and asks Death to spare him until he has a way of sorting it out. If, he says, he can have just twelve years, he can make his book of reckoning so clear that he would have no need to fear. Death refuses.

Everyman then asks Death whether he will have any company to go on the journey from life into death. Death tells him he could have company, if anyone was brave enough to go along with him. Death then asks Everyman if he believes that his life and his worldly goods are given to him. When Everyman says he thought they were, Death tells him that they were only lent to him. Everyman cannot take things with him once he has died. After refusing once more to grant Everyman more time, Death exits.

The play immediately foregrounds its purpose, and introduces a key theme: how transitory we be all day. The transience of mans life how short lived we are is a central theme of Everyman: focusing our minds not on the soon-finished concerns of our worldly life, but the eternal afterlife which will follow. There is also no dramatic tension established: the Messenger tells us that Fellowship, Jollity, Strength, Pleasure and Beauty will all fade from us as flower in May in other words, all these things, which in the world are considered valuable, are transitory and will merely fade away when you die. You cant take them with you. The ending of the play, then, is announced at the very beginning there is no mystery about whether or not Everymans so-called friends will desert him. Thus, the Messengers opening speech also begins the plays concern with beginnings and endings: the play shows of our ending as well as our lives, and warns us in the beginning to take good heed to the ending. So at the beginning of the play, we are invited to think about the end; just as, as the Messenger continues to explain, sin seems fantastic in the beginning, but in the end causes the soul to weep. There is a natural rhythm, then, in the play and a recurring theme of the relationship between beginning and ending: and the importance of planning ahead, of thinking about where the end point might be, of considering the consequences of any particular action.

It is fascinating to a modern audience that God begins by expressing his disappointment in a superficial world, obsessed with worldly riches and renown and not paying enough (if any) respect to the spiritual things of real worth: a charge that could be levelled at our own modern world as much as the world in c.1500 when the play was originally written. Everyman whose name provides us with the clue that he represents all of mankind: every man is clearly no exception to this rule. He clearly cares about expensive, fine clothing (he is finely dressed upon entering) and, when he wants Death to postpone his day of reckoning, his immediate recourse is to money, offering Death a thousand pounds as a bribe.

TransitorinessLife is transitory, and the very opening of the play announces that it will show us "how transitory we be all day" in our lives. The play documents Everyman's journey from sinful life to sin-free, holy death - and its key theme is how we can't take things with us beyond the grave. Life is transitory - always changing, always in transition, always moving towards death. Only heaven or hell is eternal. Goods, of course, arrives personified in the play, and like Fellowship, deserts Everyman, refusing to accompany him on his pilgrimage. The structure of this part of the play, is, in effect, a list of the things that you cant take with you when you die, and it is interesting that the playwright chose to start with the concrete examples of other peoples friendship and your belongings.SinOne way of looking at the play and Everyman's forsaking friends is by grouping them according to the seven deadly sins. It's certainly true that each sin could be found in the play, but sin itself is a wider theme in the play: Everyman has to absolve himself of sin to go to heaven. Everyman, remember, represents mankind generally and clearly the sins that Fellowship suggests committing are precisely the ones that God outlined at the beginning of the play. These sins are, perhaps, more serious than simply the emphasis laid upon worldly goods in the first part of the play: though, significantly, Fellowship would not even accompany Everyman, he says, for a new gown developing the theme of rich clothing and its association with worldly rather than spiritual value. Everyman has to face up to and repent for his own actions. It is interesting that we do not really see Everyman commit sin; his sins, of course, have been committed before the play begins, which is the reason that God callsDeathto visit Everyman in the first place. the seven deadly sins, and it is certainly true that all of those sins seem to be underlined in either Everyman or one of his friends at some point during the play. We have already seen how Fellowship wants to feast, drink and consort with women (gluttony and lechery) and the odd mention of murder as a form of entertainment (wrath). Everymans fine clothes and his lofty offer to bribe Death with a thousand pounds might be seen as representing pride and covetousness. All of Everymans friends, as G.A. Lester has noted, by their unwillingness to go on the journey could be said to exemplify sloth, and Goods shows a recognized form of envy in showing such delight in Everymans bad fortunes.DeathThat the play is about death is foregrounded when, early in the play, a personified Death appears at God's summons. Death's role is to bring people to judgment. Though the play doesn't particularly explore our emotional response to Death, it is important to note that Everyman's pilgrimage is to the grave - and that the whole play is a consideration of what man must do before death.PilgrimageA pilgrimage is a journey taken to a sacred or religious place, and it has often been noted that Everyman's journey through the play is in some sense itself a pilgrimage: a religious journey taken, ultimately, to heaven. Medieval writers often compared life to a pilgrimage: a transitory journey to an ultimately spiritual goal. Comparisons might also be made with those in holy orders, who, like Everyman, must learn to live without belongings and let go of the things they are attached to in order to progress on a spiritual journey. The pilgrimage itself, of course, is an important trope in medieval literature, providing the base for, among many others, ChaucersThe Canterbury Tales. It is an interesting metaphor: life is a journey towards God. Here, though, the emphasis is quite firmly laid on the fact that it is a journey that you ultimately make alone. It is notable that the first friend to forsake Everyman is the only one to represent humans Fellowship - and the forsaking friends who come later in the play are allegorical personifications of abstract qualities like strength or goods. The message is bleak, but clear: other people will immediately desert you. It also provides an interesting connection with religious orders (monks and nuns) who swear a vow of poverty like Everyman, they must lay aside their worldly goods. The pilgrimage itself, of course, is an important trope in medieval literature, providing the base for, among many others, ChaucersThe Canterbury Tales. It is an interesting metaphor: life is a journey towards God. Here, though, the emphasis is quite firmly laid on the fact that it is a journey that you ultimately make alone. It is notable that the first friend to forsake Everyman is the only one to represent humans Fellowship - and the forsaking friends who come later in the play are allegorical personifications of abstract qualities like strength or goods. The message is bleak, but clear: other people will immediately desert you. It also provides an interesting connection with religious orders (monks and nuns) who swear a vow of poverty like Everyman, they must lay aside their worldly goods.Worldly GoodsEveryman is - notably - deserted by his Goods about halfway through the play, and told that love of Goods is opposite to love of God. For Everyman, who is finely dressed, and whose friend, Fellowship, holds a new robe in high esteem, part of the progression of the play is learning not to be attached to worldly goods, and to focus his attention instead on things with spiritual value.Reckoning and judgementEveryman has to clear his book of reckoning before he can progress to heaven, and one of the things the play considers is how humans will be judged after they have died. God is furious that humans are living a superficial life on earth, focusing on wealth and riches, without worrying about the greater judgment that is to come - and, notably, Everyman's own judgment - his ability to understand his life - becomes gradually more and more enlightened on his pilgrimage towards his heavenly reward.Earthly versus spiritualAt the beginning of the play, God is furious that humans are concerning themselves with worldly things and not with their ultimate spiritual judgment - and whether they will dwell in heaven or hell. People are "living without dread in worldly prosperity". The play constantly explores the conflict between worldly concerns, riches, clothes and relationships, and the need to focus on spiritual welfare, heaven and hell and God's judgment. Stylistically, it is also worth noting the continual use of proverbs by the writer of Everyman. Everyman himself speaks two in this section. Firstly, after the departure of Fellowship, he comments that Fair words maketh fools fain (Nice words only make idiots happy) as he has realised that he cannot trust promises that people make. Interestingly, though, he also ruminates that he has heard the proverb Money maketh all right that is wrong (Money rights every wrong money solves every problem) which leads him to turn to his goods. It might be a true dictum of our earthly world that you can buy your way out of any problem; but it is certainly not true at all of the Christian spiritual world which Everyman will travel to after his death. The ironic use of this proverb reiterates the plays emphasis on spiritual value over worldly goods.