Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons

Out of the numerous novels and transcripts I have read in my academic career, never has one contained a narrator that conveys so much personal meaning than Robert Bolt’s “A Man For All Seasons”. The stories’ commentator, titled “The Common Man”, not only provides context of the scenes, but plays the role of many influential characters. He provides background to problems, interacts with the protagonist and company, and ultimately affects the story’s plot line. Most importantly, he moves the reader to think about who they are as a person, and represents their feelings in character. The Common Man makes frequent soliloquys about life on order to do this. For instance, the execution of the main character, the culmination of his guilty mind,

He serves as a butler, innkeeper, jailer, and the executioner of More. Bolt intents for these characters to represent ourselves, but he mostly makes look like the “evil” characters. The Common Man begins as the butler of More. He is a great companion and loyal servant, or so it seems. As the story progresses, his moral stance begins to waver. He was willing to provide “personal” information about More to Cromwell and Roger for money. This information was already widely known, but apparently not to them. It still shows that the Steward did not hesitate to betray his master, even after everything he did for him. When the Common Man plays the role of the innkeeper, ironically for a building called “The Loyal Subject”, he acts honest to Cromwell, who wants to conspire about Henry’s big problem. Cromwell accuses him of being dishonest about his knowledge and intentions. The innkeeper denies being dishonest, even though throughout the play, his character becomes very untruthful and impulsive. We are not for certain what he knows, but he does tell the audience that he is not a deep thinker. All of his characters turn to deceit and lying, when he used to be very loyal. He turns into the other characters, whose personal conscience is not as important as the populations’. He only thinks for himself. His slipping into a moral devaluation may represent us, the reader. We go through life, sin more and more, and may not solve it. We start to fend for ourselves and not others. The world is becoming selfish, and he is showing us