Keywords: medieval era, morality play, realism, everyman INTRODUCTION

The play Everyman was written in the 1508 during the medieval era a period characterized by the dominance of theology with its undeniable contribution to the advancement of the medieval era. According to Habib (2005:15), the most powerful force in the development of the medieval civilization was Christianity”. Within this period reference was made to God as the ultimate source of human existence and essence. In view of this, the creative art, particularly literature, took a theological turn as against the secular literature that had dominated the literacy sphere as landed down from ancient Greek tradition. The implication of this theological twist gave rise to the interest in morality as a means of inculcating godly virtues in man. Morality plays have been described by Abrams (2009:20) in a glossary of literary terms as ‘dramatized allegories of representative Christian life in the plot form of a guest for salvation, in which the crucial events are temptations, sinning and the climatic confrontation with death. The usual protagonist represent mankind, or everyman among the other characters. Personification of virtues, vices and the death as well as angels and demons who contest for the prize of the soul of mankind. This means that the premise upon which morality plays evolved was in a bid to reflect mankind in a constant struggle between the forces of food and evil, virtue and vice which may not necessarily be understood at a glance but when given a deeper consideration. Some examples of these (morality) plays include The Castle of Perseverance (1460), The Pride of Life (1410), Mankind (1475) et ce tra.

Despite the fact that morality plays are often traced back to the medieval era, they still embody values that speak to all men at all times. It therefore becomes necessary to explore Everyman (1508) as a morality play within the context of contemporary reality to draw from the timeless value that the text holds. This paper therefore, deploys the aesthetics of realism as a lens for examining the elements of morality in Everyman (1508) so as to situate the text within contemporary reality and to fulfill the didactic essence to which literary texts are often explored.