 Everyman is an archetype, a character who stands in for a

broader group of people. In effect, Everyman represents the average

person. The play uses this same technique to personify inanimate
objects (in the character of Goods) and abstract concepts (such as
Fellowship and Good Deeds).
 Everyman is a morality play designed to teach its audience a
very specific message: that people can only take their good deeds
with them into the afterlife.
 The doctor reiterates the plays didactic purpose at the end:
one's actions in life directly correlate to how one will be judged in the
afterlife.

La palabra arquetipo se usa generalmente para describir un

personaje que representa un patrón del que se derivan todos los
caracteres o "tipos". El término deriva del trabajo de Carl Jung,
quien expresó la teoría de que detrás de cada inconsciente se
encuentran los recuerdos colectivos del pasado. En la literatura, el
término a menudo se aplica a un tipo de personaje o patrón de
trama que ocurre con frecuencia y se reconoce
fácilmente. En Everyman , Death es uno de esos personajes, y la
audiencia reconocería inmediatamente a este personaje y su
propósito en la trama
The word archetype is generally used to describe a character who
represents a pattern from which all characters or "types" are derived.
The term derives from the work of Carl Jung, who expressed the
theory that behind every unconscious lies the collective memories of
the past. In literature, the term is often applied to a character type or
plot pattern that occurs frequently and is easily recognized.
In Everyman, Death is such a character, and the audience would
immediately recognize this character and his purpose in the plot

The actions of each character are what constitute the story.

Character can also include the idea of a particular individual's
morality. Characters can range from simple stereotypical figures to
more complex multi-faceted ones. Characters may also be defined
by personality traits, such as the rogue or the damsel in
distress. Characterization is the process of creating a life-like person
from an author's imagination.

Everyman differs slightly from this definition, since each character is

little more than a "type." The audience does not really know or
understand the character as an individual. For instance, Fellowship
represents little more than a quality, not an individual. The audience
understands that Fellowship signifies the friendships than men have
while here on earth.

A drama is often defined as any work designed to be presented on

the stage. It consists of a story, of actors portraying characters, and
of action. In Everyman, drama is aligned with spectacle and is
intended as a mechanism to instruct the audience on how to prepare
for death.

Morality Play
Following the revival of theatre in the eleventh century, the Catholic
Church began to introduce brief dramatized episodes into the mass
on the occasion of major festivals. These gradually developed into
complete plays, performed in public places by the trade guilds, and
were known as mystery plays. In some towns, there was a cycle of
dramatized stories from the Creation to the Last Judgement. These
were succeeded in the fifteenth century by morality plays, allegorical
presentations of human vices and virtues in conflict. Among
these, Everyman is perhaps the best known.