Themes of Everyman

The central focus of the play Everyman is life after death. As Everyman is an allegorical and didactic play it shares the theme of religion. The life after death is the real life as it is eternal and virtuous. For gaining the life, even after death to avoid the sorrowful journey of hell, one has to do good deeds and be generous in the earthly life.

One must not forget that the eternity of life is possible in the Fatherly Heaven if the worldly life is full of moral deeds. So one must not make any delay before the death arrives. Only good deeds and morality lead one into the path of eternal life that is possible after physical death.

The deceptive appearance of sin

Another main theme of the play is to make the readers, especially the Christians readers to make aware about the false and deceptive appearance of the sin. In this physical world, sin takes various forms which are illusionary. The Beauty, Wealth, Power, Lust, Anger, Jealousy etc are some fake forms of sin. People on the earth make vigorous efforts to gain all such sinful things thinking that the achievement of such worldly things is the goal of life. But at the time of death, all this thing disappears and they lead us to the path of eternal pain, Hell. People just hover around the fake things and forget the real good deeds to do. The only company up to the grave is our Good Deeds not the Beauty or the Wealth.

Inevitability of death

The inevitability of death is another striking theme of Everyman. The moment one is born he or she also carries the death with him or her throughout the life. Neither the rich, nor the poor, nor the wise, nor the foolish, nor the kid, nor the old can escape the final judgment of the God. The moment death approaches us, we cannot make any delay or we cannot get any mercy. One has to give all the account of the good deeds and bad deeds in front of the God and on the basis of our action on the earth we are judged and sent to eternal bliss or eternal pain. Death is beyond our control. So, the play Everyman teaches us to be ready to face death anytime and also encourages us to earn virtues while living.