The Role of Irony in "Everyman"

The Role of Irony in "Everyman"

The desire for wealth and prosperity is what drives many in this world, but is that truly the best motivation? In the play Everyman, irony is used to promote the idea that materialistic things are pointless and the only truly valuable thing is the goodness of a person's deeds. When the time comes to leave this life, nothing but good deeds will follow over into the afterlife. Wealth and friends will not be able to help a person once they die. Help will come only from their good deeds when standing before Saint Peter. When all the material things in this world are gone, the only thing left are good deeds. Throughout the course of the play, Everyman discovers that he is forsaken by everything that he once held dear in his life. When his time to die finally comes, he finds himself utterly alone and friendless. Despite his wealth and so called friends, Everyman is unable to stave off his death or even find a helping hand. Though family and friends alike both pledge their undying loyalty and love to Everyman, they abandon him in his greatest hour of need when he asks for their help. His wealth even confesses to leading many men to hell by telling him, "My condition is man's soul to kill; If I save one, a thousand I do spill;" (441-445). Everyman is alone until he finds Good-deeds laying "cold on the ground" (485). Good-deeds, the one thing he had overlooked and ignored in his life, was the only one wiling to help him. The only one willing to actually follow Everyman on his journey to the afterlife. Everyman had put his trust in the deceitful, loved the wicked, and befriended the unfaithful. They were all to willing to lend a helping hand as long as they benefited from it, but as soon as they saw any danger to themselves, they fled from Everyman's side. Even weak as she was, Good-deeds was the only one willing to accompany Everyman on his final voyage. It is then that Everyman realizes the truth; that everything he once thought was important was in actuality only harming him. All he valued in life had no way of helping him in death. Salvation comes only from Good-deeds. When he is being judged by God, only his Good-deeds will be by his side to speak on his behalf. The materialistic aspects of life are irrelevant. They mean nothing. The good in life is all that matters. Everyman seeks to illustrate the fact that good morals are what one should really strive for in life. When all is said and done, it doesn't matter how wealthy a person is or how powerful they are, what matters is what they have done during their lifetime. These principles still hold true today. They are just as applicable in modern life as the day they were first penned. The religious aspect doesn't need to be taken into context nowadays, but the basic ideas still are relevant. Being good has its own rewards that nothing else can come close to imitating. I believe the Doctor said it best when he spoke, "This moral men may have in mind; Ye hearers, take it of worth, old and young, And forsake pride, for he deceiveth you in the end, And remember Beauty, Five-Wits, Strength, and Discretion, They all at the last do Everyman forsake, Save his Good-Deeds, there doth he take." (634-639).