Morality Play Plot Summaries

Morality Play Plot Summaries: The Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, and Everyman

The Castle of Perseverance is a massive play of 3,649 lines which “emulates the cosmic scope of the Corpus Christi cycles” (Bevington 796). The protagonist is Humanum Genus, and the Castle of Perseverance, like the castle in Mary Magdalene, is his soul in harmony with God. The drama begins with a comical debate between Humanum Genus’ Bonus Angelus (Good Angel) and Malus Angelus (Bad Angel). Following the now-well-known stereotype, Bonus Angelus is staid and pious, who quotes Scripture in Latin, e.g., “Divitas et paupertates ne dederis mihi, Domine” (l. 361a), while Malus Angelus is smooth-talking and fun-promising, who speaks casually, e.g., “Ya, on thy sowle thou shalt thinke al betime [soon enough]” (l. 411), but in the meantime, enjoy the world boldly and repent when “thou be sexty winter hold” (l. 417). Of course, Malus Angelus is very persuasive to the young Humanum Genus – “I am but yonge” (l. 423) – and he follows Malus Angelus to the World’s scaffold (l. 446) and wherever Malus Angelus goes.

Humanum Genus meets the Seven Deadly Sins, and they seem kind and polite to him, but behind his back they snicker at his misfortune. For instance, Voluptas says to Humanum Genus, “Je vous pry, / Sir, I say” but in an aside he says, “He schal rust, Til dethys dust / Do him to day” (ll. 632-38). He lives his young life, cavorting with these new “friends” while Bonus Angelus is beside himself, wailing, “So mekyl [much] the worse – welle-a-woo! -- / That evere Good Aungyl was ordeynyd [assigned to] the[e]!” (ll. 1260-61). Certainly, Bonys Angelus’ misfortune makes Malus Angelus happy, like two brothers who cannot get along. He gloats vulgarly at him, “No, Good Aungyl, thou are not in sesun; / Fewe men in the[e] feyth they finde. / For thou hast schewyed a ballyd resun, / Goode sire, cum blow min[e] hol[e] behinde!” (ll. 1273-76). Funny though he be, clearly somebody needs to put the Bad Angel in his place.

At midlife occurs Humanum Genus’ first conversion. Schrifte (Confession) arrives and tries to talk sense into Humanum Genus, who replies, “I have now ellys to done” (l. 1351). In other words, “I’m too busy right now.” Also, he gives the weak excuse, “But other han don as evil as I” (ll. 1373-74), so what is the problem since everybody is sinning just as he is? At that excuse, there is no use trying to talk sense to the man, so Paenitentia (Penance) pierces his heart with her “launce” of conscience (l. 1379), essentially using violence what words could not do. And it works. “A sete of sorwe in me is set” (l. 1403), says Humanum Genus; contrite, he confesses his sins, gains absolution (l. 1527), and, returned to a state of grace, goes to “The castel / …/ Good Perseverance God sende me” (ll. 1560, 1563). There, the Seven Cardinal Virtues, seen as “Ladys in londe, lovely and lyt” (l. 1667), live there to support Humanum Genus.

Of course, Malus Angelus is furious: “In min[e] hert it doth me dere, / The bost that tho moderys crake; / My galle ginneth to grinde” (ll. 1730-32). He commands the World, Belial (Satan), and Flesh to fight for Human Genus’ soul (ll. 1734-36) via his messenger, Backbiter. But the first effect of Backbiter’s bad news of Humanum Genus’ conversion is discord within the ranks: Belial beats down his minions, Pride, Envy, and Wrath for not keeping an eye on him (ll. 1771-72), Flesh flogs Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery (l. 1822), and World beats Covetousness (l. 1863). Backbiter, who loves to sow discord, even among his allies, enjoys all the beating and fighting: “Ya! For God, this was wel goo / Thus to werke with Bakbitinge!” (ll. 1778-79).

Only after the infighting is spent do World, Belial, and Flesh go forth to the castle to do battle (l. 1896). Malus Angelus gives a jaunty speech with battle plans (ll, 1969-94), and the Seven Deadly Sins insult the Seven Virtues; for example, Ira (Wrath) exclaims, “Thou modyr, thou moty hole!” (l. 2119). But their bragging becomes hollow as the Seven Virtues defeat the Seven Sins by throwing flowers at them (l. 2198), which R.D.S. Jack identifies as “Roses which represent the passion” (143). Says Superbia (Pride), “Owt! My proude bak is bent!” (l. 2199). More vulgarly, Invidia (Envy) cries out, “Al min[e] enmité is not worth a fart / I schite and schake al in my schete!” (ll. 2208-09). Also, Ira wails, “I am al betyn blak and blo / With a rose that on rode was rent” (ll. 2219-20). So far, all looks good for Humanum Genus.

Except nothing stays stable in life. One sin, Avaritia (Covetousness) wins Humanum Genus because he uses sweet persuasive words instead of vulgar bombast. Avaritia croons, “Cum and speke with thy best frende, Sir Coveitise! Thou knowist me of olde. / …./ We t[w]o schul togedyr pley, / If thou wilt, a while” (ll. 2429-30, 2438-39). He also speaks politely to his arch-nemesis, Largité (Generosity), “What eylith the[e], Lady Largité / Damsel dingne upon thy des?” (ll. 2466-67). Avaritia wins by his appeals to Human Genus’s fear of being poor in his old age: “If thou be poore and nedy in elde, / Thou schalt oftyn evil fare” (ll. 2529-30). Malus Angelus, at his win, insults the Seven Virtues, “Ya! Go for the, and lete the qwenys cakle! / Ther wymmen arn, are many wordys: / Lete hem gon happyn with here hakle! / Ther ges sittyn are many tordys” (ll. 2648-51). Such is the vulgar gloat of a sore winner.

With Avaritia and the World, Humanum Genus spends the remainder of his life, but then Death arrives and strikes. Humanum Genus cries out, “Goode Sir Werld, helpe now Mankend!” But World answers, matter-of-factly, “Ageyns him [Death] helpith no wage” (l. 2870). At that reply, Humanum Genus could have died in despair, becoming like one of the damned souls in the mystery play, The Last Judgment, wishing that he were never born. But instead Humanum Genus says a deathbed prayer, “But God me graunte of his grace / …. / I putte me in Goddys mercy!” (ll. 3002, 3007). Even though Malus Angelus strikes Humanum Genus’ soul three times (ll. 3114, 3118, 3121) and is about to drag him to Hell, Misericordia (Mercy), Justitia (Justice), Veritas (Truth), and Pax (Peace) arrive (l. 3129) and debate over the state of his soul before the court of God (l. 3230). Mercy’s argument is that out of Adam’s sin is “The blood of redempcioun” (l. 3363); that is, without sin, there would be no need for redemption. Pax, agreeing with Mercy, wins out (ll. 3519-20), and Humanum Genus, by his deathbed conversion and prayer for God’s mercy, which God grants, is saved.

Therefore, we see in The Castle of Perseverance the pattern of man falling into sin by his free will – listening to Malus Angelus and then to Avaritia – and his eventual recovery to grace by the mysterious power of grace itself (the lance of Penitence) and his own free-will to hope for that grace instead of falling into despair, as seen in Humanum Genus’ deathbed prayer. We see that “vice is more appealing than serious moral instruction but, while comic, it is recognizably evil” (Bevington 798). We will see the same elements in Mankind, although the scope is narrower and the comedy is “slapstick comedy” (Bevington 901) akin to the Second Shepherd’s Play.

Unlike the densely populated and lengthy The Castle of Perseverance, the shorter Mankind only has seven characters in a rural small-town setting. The protagonist is Mankind, a simple farmer. The personified virtue is Mercy, as well-meaning but somewhat pedantic priest. The devil is named Titivillus, his earthy delegate is Mischeff, and Mischeff’s cohorts, the three vices, are New-Guise, Nowadays, and Nought. The play dramatizes the metaphor of Mankind’s life in grace as working the fields and his fallen life as forsaking his work and indulging in sloth and debauchery. Like the Bonus Angelus and Malus Angelus of The Castle of Perseverance, Mercy advocates a virtuous life that is hard and somber while the four rogues (Mischeff, New-Guise, Nowadays, and Nought) speak of an alternative life that sounds easy and fun-filled. Frustrated with his hard life, one can understand Mankind’s dilemma when faced with these two alternatives.

First, one hears Mercy’s sermon to the audience. “O ye soverens that sitt, and ye brothern that stonde right uppe, / Prike not your felicitas in thingys transitorye!” (ll. 29-30), but then he is heckled by Mischeff, questioning his “lewde [ignorant] understanding” (l. 58), and crudely insulted by New-Guise, Nowadays, and Nought (ll. 116-18), including Nowadays’ parody of Mercy’s knowledge of Latin, “Osculare fundamentum! [Kiss my ass!]” (l. 142). The evil characters bring an earthy humour which, as Paula Neuss states, “satisfies the audience’s desire to end Mercy’s harangue with an interruption just at the right moment” (in Denny 46), which should be unsettling for the audience because this desired interruption is delivered by evil. Like Mankind, the audience is impatient with plodding along with doing good works that feel unpleasant at the moment, like hearing Mercy’s sermon. Mankind, whose personification includes the audience, voices the well-known split between Man’s body and soul: “O th[o]u my soull, so sotyll in thy substance, / …[sic]/ Alasse, what was thy fortune and thy chaunce / To be associat with my flesch, that stinking dungehill?” (ll. 202-204). In less colorful language, Mercy restates this Manichean problem as a constant “batell betwix the soull and the body” (l. 227), but unlike the Manichean solution of forsaking the body for the soul, Mercy advises moderation: “Mesure yowrself ever. Beware of excesse” (l. 238), including temptations of “excesse” in the forms of the three vices, New-Guise, Nowadays, and Nought (l. 295), Titivillus (l. 301), and Mischeff (l. 306). Mercy’s advice is good, and Mankind knows the right thing to do. But knowing the right thing is one matter; doing the right thing is another matter entirely when the wrong thing looks jolly and fun, as seen in the merry-making of the three vices among the audience (ll. 331-34), as they sing a scatologically funny Christmas song (ll. 335-43).

Mankind’s fall into sin is not without a fight at first. The three vices tempt Mankind not to work (ll. 344-50), but he loses his temper and beats them with his spade (ll. 376-80), a comical display of righteous anger with comical results on the part of the three beaten tempters, e.g., “Alas, my jewellys! I shall be schent of my wiff[e]!” wails New-Guise. The devil Titivillus is a subtler tempter: He sabotages Mankind’s labor by putting a wooden board in the soil so that it is difficult to plow (l. 533) and by mixing the grain seed with weeds (l. 536). This ruse gets the desired effect; faced with this run of bad luck, Mankind chooses to forsake his virtuous life of toil: “Here I giff uppe my spade, for now and forever!” (l. 549), becoming an Adam who rejects God’s declaration that Man must work by the sweat of his brow for his food, clothing, and shelter. With Mankind’s mind oriented away from his God, Titivillus’ further temptation of Mankind as he sleeps, the lie that Mercy is actually a thief and is dead (l. 606) and the vices are actually his new friends (l. 602), works easily. Like Milton’s Eve, Mankind awakens from this tempting dream, but unlike Milton’s Eve, he has no external helpmeet to advocate against following this temptation.

After Mankind’s choice to follow sin, his acts of sin come easily. He seeks and finds the three vices (ll. 655-56). He forsakes his old, virtuous life (allegorized by his long, practical coat) for a new, vicious life, allegorized by his coat now cut into an impractical short jacket (l. 718) that does not keep him warm. He dismisses Mercy (l. 727), who grieves, like Bonus Angelus, “I kannot bere it evynly that Mankinde is so flexiball!” (l. 741). After a bit, when Mankind realizes his sins as sins, he even sins by despairing so that he contemplates suicide; “A roppe, a rope, a rope! I am not worthy” (l. 800). The absurdity of Mankind’s spiritual condition is seen in Mischeff and the three vices assisting Mankind’s desire for suicide by demonstrating how to hang oneself: “Lo, Mankinde, do as I do: this is thy new g[u]ise. / Giff the roppe just to thye neke, this is min[e] avise” (ll. 804-805).

Fortunately, hope arrives in the form of Mercy. Mercy convinces Mankind to ask for Mercy (l. 827), thus turning Mankind away from despair and back to God. As Neuss points out,

[M]ercy is always available, as long is it is wanted. The character Mercy, we realize, was present in the play as long as he was wanted. The audience’s slothful impatience had brought on Mischief and started Mischief’s game, thus dismissing Mercy; later, tired of the Vices and chastened by the Devil’s work, they longed for Mercy again, and he returned. (in Denny 67)

“Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall,” writes Milton (Milton, "Paradise Lost" l. 99), and the play stresses this message of man’s free-will in his salvation journey that is his life. Says Mercy to Mankind, “Ye may both save and spill your sowle, that is precius; / Libere welle, libere nolle [Freely to choose, freely not to choose] God many not deny, iwis” (ll. 893-94). This warning, spoken to one character, is also for all of humanity, audience included, as clearly seen in the plural “Ye.” Just as “the audience is encouraged not only to witness the effects of worldly levity but to participate in them” (Jack 153), the audience also “may come to see the error of their ways with Mankind and travel imaginatively with him into the realms of divine forgiveness and joy” (Jack 153). Ending with a prayer for the audience (ll. 912-14), Mankind, “an altogether more intimate play [than The Castle of Perseverance]” (Beadle 251), allows the audience not only a venue to witness the divine comedy of sin, forgiveness, and grace but also to participate in it as well.

As one has seen in The Castle of Perseverance and Mankind, the hallmark of man’s spiritual life is battle – a siege against a castle, a beating back with a spade. The literal violence allegorizes a spiritual violence even as it is juxtaposed with strong elements of comedy, as seen in the earthy humour of both plays. In contrast, the violence and comedy of Everyman are muted as compared to the aforementioned plays. Although well-known “as the archetypal moral play” (Beadle 255), Everyman is actually the English version of the Dutch morality play Elckerlije (Beadle 255) and, unlike the two native English morality plays, Everyman does not begin at the start of Man’s life but at the end of his life, at his death and Last Judgment. As Bevington states, “Everyman focuses instead on the moment of the Coming of Death, a moment of intense emotional impact. ….The play eschews laughter but gains by the purity of its emphasis on the meaning of death” (Bevington 939). Death is the goad that starts Everyman’s salvation journey; “Death begins the chain of events,” states Spinrad, and “Everyman enters as a fully developed human creature, and only as he is learning to die does the audience learn about his life” (Spinrad 69). Spinrad calls death “the first of Everyman’s instructors” (70), and the play Everyman becomes a “cram session” (so to speak) for the Final Exam that is Everyman’s judgment before God. This overtly didactic structure also mutes the comic and violent elements otherwise seen in the previous two morality plays, making Everyman’s comic and violent elements neither elaborate nor shocking. For instance, the only violence in Everyman is the threat of damnation, which Everyman feels when Death visits him one day to tell him that he must give a reckoning of his life before God (ll. 98-100). This violence is more spiritual or psychological than physical, but it need not be physical to be real, for the audience to feel this threat of damnation along with Everyman, since the audience knows they too will meet Death someday.

One can see Everyman in four parts: Part I is Everyman’s denial of his Death. Part II is his search for companions towards his death “pilgrimage” (l. 68) to his judgment before God. Part III is his spiritual preparation before death. Finally, Part IV is his actual death and judgment.

First, in Part I, God declares, “Drowned in sinne, they know me not for their God” (l. 26), and so God sends Death to show Everyman a “pilgrimage he must on him to take” (l. 68). Spinrad notes Everyman’s refusal to admit Death’s identity when Death appears before him; “Everyman does not recognize Death when they are face to face” (70). Says Everyman, “What messenger arte thou?” (l. 113) even after Death has given his message that Everyman must give a reckoning to God (l. 99) and even after Everyman complains that he needs more time to square his accounts before his reckoning (ll. 101-102). Desperate enough to cry out like the damned, “I wolde to God I had never be gete!” (l. 189), Everyman is not so despairing that he doesn’t pray, “O gracious God in the hye sete celestiall, / Have mercy on me in this moost nede!” (ll. 153-54). With that being said, Death allows Everyman “company” to go along with him, if he can find one willing.

The majority of the play is Part II, which is Everyman’s search for that companion or companions on his journey to his death and reckoning. Everyman tries to rely upon his friends, that is, his temporal gifts, and asks them one by one to accompany him. The comic element occurs when his cherished friends – Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, Goods, and then, later, Knowledge, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits – abandon him, and Everyman realizes that his reliance upon them in unfounded. This reversal of his expectations is comic in two ways. First, the action of the reversal is itself humorous as Everyman stands agape while his friends give excuses and then bid him good luck while fleeing from him as if his death were contagious. For instance, Fellowship gives big words: “I will not forsake the[e] to my lives ende” (l. 212), but his actions are small: “I will not go that lothe journaye -- / Not ofr the fader that bigate me!” (ll. 267-68). Fellowship is a fair-weather friend, there in eating, drinking, women, and even helping in murder (ll. 272-82) but not in death. He is sorry for Everyman, but he is not going. Similar are Kindred and Cousin. They give promising words: “If ye be disposed to go any-whyder; / For, wete you will, [we] will live and die togyder” (ll. 323-24), but their actions are betrayals. Says Kindred, “As for me, ye shall go alone”(l. 354), and says Cosyn, “No, by Our Lady! I have the crampe in my to[e]” (l. 356), which is one of the lamest excuses for betraying friend and family.

But at least Fellowship, Kindred, and Cousin feel sorry for Everyman; not so for Goods. Goods’ soothing words are “Sir, and ye in the worlde have sorowe or adversité / That can I helpe you to remedy shortly” (ll. 401-02), but upon hearing Everyman’s dilemma, Goods changes its tune: “Nay, Everyman, I singe another songe!” (l. 414) and “For my love is contrary to the love everlasting” (l. 430), similar to Avaritia in The Castle of Perseverance. Everyman tries to blame Goods for deceiving him, but Goods’ reply, “Mar[r]y, thou brought thyself in care” (l. 454), reminds him of his free will to choose well or choose poorly in his life. The wickedly funny and morbid reality is that Goods is happy that Everyman deceived himself: “Whereof I am [right] gladde; / I must nedes laugh, I cannot be sadde” (ll. 455-56).

In desperation, he turns to his Good Deeds, which begins Part III, his spiritual preparation and conversion to God. Good Deeds is in sad shape: “Here I lie, colde in the grounde. / Thy sinnes hath me sore bounde, / That I cannot stere” (ll. 486-88). Still, she will go with him, saying, “that journey with you will I take” (l. 495), but first she needs to be unbound. So she calls in her sister, Knowledge, who also says, “Everyman, I will go with the[e], and by thy guide” (ll. 522). Knowledge becomes a guide to Everyman’s penance. She commands, “Now go we togyder lovingly / To Confession, that cleansing rivere” (ll. 535-36), and “Lo, this is Confession. Knele down and aske mercy, / For he is in good conceite with God Almighty” (ll. 543-44). Everyman goes through the purifying process of his soul: “contricion” (l. 549), confession (l. 580), absolution (l. 556), and penance – “Knowledge, give me the scourge of penaunce” (l. 605). At this last step, Good Deeds can stand up and walk (l. 619) as the bindings that are Everyman’s sins have been cleansed away.

Wearing Knowledge’s “garment of sorowe” (l. 643) so that he has on “true contricion” (l. 650), which is the equivalent of Humanus Genus’ return to his Castle of Perseverance, he is spiritually arrayed to meet and learn from Discretion, Strength, Five Wits, and Beauty (l. 669). These are his bodily virtues who, along with Knowledge, remind him of the seven sacraments (l. 723), which are loci where the spiritual and divine meet the physical and mundane. After taking the last two sacraments, Eucharist and Extreme Unction (ll. 773-74), Everyman goes to his grave, spiritually prepared to go to his reckoning. Thus, we see the second way in which Everyman’s reversal of his expectations is comic: the reversal, which abolishes Everyman’s ties to the world, prepares Everyman to turn to God, whose grace and forgiveness is the comic, or happy, ending to his process of salvation.

But, as one sees in Part IV, the process is not yet complete. Everyman’s bodily virtues leave him, one by one: Beauty (ll. 803-04), Strength (ll. 808-09), Discretion (ll. 831-32), and finally, Five Wits (ll. 845-46). Everyman is unprepared for this second set of desertions as he cried, “O Jesu, helpe! All hath forsaken me” (l. 851). But, of course, it is not his bodily virtues that will save him and thus even those must go away, and, as he travels further into his death, naturally they do. As Spinrad points out, “Everyman has reached the last and most profound depth in the process of dying: the point at which the dying person begins to lose control of his faculties” (Spinrad 84). In his cry of being “forsaken,” Everyman participates in Christ’s own death; “in his final letting go,” states Spinrad, “[Everyman] is joining Christ in his final agony” (84). Only Good Deeds goes with Everyman to his death (l. 852), for it is Everyman’s penitential soul and his Good Deeds which will be the matter of his reckoning before God’s judgment. Knowledge, as the intermediary between the temporal, physical world and the atemporal, spiritual world, waits until Everyman’s reckoning and announces to the audience, “Methinketh that I here aungelles singe” (l. 891). This announcement completes Everyman as a divine comedy, as “a comedy of forgiveness… which ends necessarily with the forgiveness of an erring hero,” as Robert Hunter states (Hunter 16). This happy ending brings spiritual reassurance to the medieval audience, who identifies with the sinner in the play.

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