Morality Play - Characteristics

Characteristics

Morality plays typically contain a protagonist who represents either humanity as a whole or a smaller social structure. Supporting characters are personifications of good and evil. This alignment of characters provides the play’s audience with moral guidance. Morality plays are the result of the dominant belief of the time period, that humans had a certain amount of control over their post-death fate while they were on earth.

In Everyman, perhaps the archetypal morality play, the characters take on the common pattern, representing broader ideas. Some of the characters in Everyman are God, Death, Everyman, Good-Deeds, Angel, Knowledge, Beauty, Discretion, and Strength. The personified meanings of these characters are hardly hidden. The premise of Everyman is that God, believing that the people on earth are too focused on wealth and worldly possessions, sends Death to Everyman to remind him of God's power and the importance of upholding values. The emphasis put on morality, the seemingly vast difference between good and evil, and the strong presence of God make Everyman one of the most concrete examples of a morality play. At the same time, most morality plays focus more on evil, while Everyman focuses more on good, highlighting sin in contrast

Other plays that take on the typical traits of morality plays, but are rarely given the title of "morality play" are Hickscorner and The Second Shepherds' Play. The characters in Hickscorner are Pity, Perseverance, Imagination, Contemplation, Freewill, and Hickscorner. They blatantly represent moral ideals. In The Second Shepherds' Play, the characters are less obviously representative of good and evil, being primarily a trio of shepherds. But other characters such as Mary, The Child Christ, and An Angel show a strong moral presence and the importance of God in the play.