To begin with Everyman deals with the structure of the medieval Christian religious ritual. Everyman takes a psychomachic journey from the living world to meet with God on his day of reckoning. Medieval Christian’s had a standard set of performances they engaged in before their own day of reckoning, they needed to “show” their compliance with the main Christian rituals. God commands the Messenger to Everyman which portrays God as the powerful being and the Messenger as the supporting character in the performance of ritualized confession. Julie Paulson, in her 2007, “Death's Arrival and Everyman's Separation” essay states:
Everyman’s focus on the communal practices established by penitential ritual reflects the degree to which, in the late Middle Ages, both sin and penance were public matters.4 Notably, late medieval penitential and pastoral manuals present sin as
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As part of the hegemonic confessional ritual, Knowledge suggests to Everyman to make his sins known to all, including God. Everyman responds to Knowledge: “In the name of the Holy Trinity, My body sore punished shall be: Take this, body, for the sin of the flesh!” (Everyman 611-13). Everyman performs a self-injurious ritual where the audience and x other characters on stage are witness to his petition for r forgiveness for the way that he has lived.. Medieval Christians believed that the only way to serve penance for one’s sins was to undergo flagellation between one and forty times. The sinner satisfied the completion of the contrition by partaking in the act of flagellation. Tierney states, “The offender was to be beaten in the presence of the …” (Tierney 1). The traditional church, the source of the dramaturge’s material, relied on the public performance of this ritual to hold the sinner accountable for their actions. Knowledge along with Good Deeds held Everyman accountable for completing his