Throughout the process of confession and then penance Everyman faced with dealing with both sacred and demonic characters. Not only within the people that he came into contact with along his journey to meet with God but also his internal struggles that he faced along the journey, when coming to peace that he must make an account of his life and face death. The conservative dramaturge, in order to teach and solidify the communitas of viewers has Everyman also deal with the allegorical sacred. On his journey, Everyman meets Death who wanted Everyman to come with him at that very moment; however, Everyman not being ready to go tries to bargain with Death to get more time. Death comes across as a scary aspect of life that Christians do not want to face when in fact it is the natural order of things. Death’s lack of interest in what Everyman can bribe him with plays into the performative idea that death waits for no one and once it is upon you there is nothing you can do to change its course. Death states: Everyman, it may not be, by no way. I set not by gold, silver, nor riches, Ne by pope, emperor, king, duke, ne princes; For, and I would receive gifts great, All the world I might get; But my custom is clean contrary. I give thee no respite. Come hence, and not tarry. (Everyman 124-30) Death is a natural part of both life and of the …show more content…
Death is a sacred character that in the eyes of the communitas is seen as harmful. Death creates a liminal space within the set-up of the play. Everyman is not dead but is not alive either, he is in this in between world created by Death’s presence. Mills states; “… Death’s initial commission is to warn, not to destroy, his coming can be read as a subjective realization rather than a physical attack by some terminal disease” (Mills 134). Seeing Death’s as a means to warn Everyman and not harm him portrays himself as a character wanting to do good, by performing a scared