Both Everyman and Doctor Faustus are versions of the type of morality play common in medieval England. Everyman is a straightforward example of the form. All of its characters serve as allegories for specific virtues and vices, with the eponymous Everyman representing the individual human soul caught in the battle of good and evil.
Doctor Faustus is not exactly a morality play, as Faustus himself is far more individualized as a protagonist than Everyman is, but it does play on the conventions and archetypes present in medieval morality plays. Mephistophilis represents vice and evil, tempting the human soul to damnation much like the traditional Vice character in morality plays, but even he is not a mere allegorical stand-in: he shows signs of pity for Faustus, early on betraying his misery at being a fallen angel and warning Faustus against falling prey to sin. This is a far cry from the more simplistic figures in Everyman.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
List the ceremonies or cultural practices that Everyman relies upon, then do the same for Doctor Faustus. Write a paragraph comparing the play’s use of it to an earlier cultural practice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
James is very unhappy on a number of occasions throughout the story, but he's especially unhappy with his life situation as the story be...
-
One of the plot lines in Pride and Prejudice is Mrs. Bennet’s plan to marry off her daughters, preferably to rich men. Throughout the novel...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
No comments:
Post a Comment