And again we jump forward another 900 years or so.  This segment is brought to you by the letter "M", well the letter M and the Catholic Church.  Why M?  The medieval period of theatre produced three types of plays miracle, mystery, and morality.  (you should know the difference).  Due to time limitations in the course we have skipped over many important historical events, particularly in Japan, China, and India...and the first play by a female playwright...we still don't have enough,  but this isn't a history class it's a literature class, so we have moved on to the next round of significant literature.  However, a little history anyway.  Rome has fallen.  Imagine our world if there were suddenly no police, no government, no internet, no road repair, no services of any kind as that was all handled by the Romans.  It would truly be the...Dark Ages.  Other than societies in our own age, Rome was the most organized society the world has possibly ever seen.  Trade, supply, roads, military, government, laws, etc. held society together.  As long as you were Roman, or accepted their control...life was good.  Then it all went to 'hell in a hand-basket. ' Rome fell.  Suddenly there were none of the benefits mentioned a few sentences ago.  Life was hard.  The governments across Europe, Northern Africa, and the near east had operated official business in Latin.  No more.  Languages experienced huge transitional periods.  Melding Latin with their own under-developed native tongues.  Stealing grammar from Latin and creating, French, Spanish, and Italian- and French later highly influenced the germanic language called English.  Everything was changing.  Local warlords ruled the day.  They came and went.  Until....another great organizer filled the power vacuum; the Catholic Church.  As ruthless as the Romans had been, the church spread its influence far and wide with equal fervor and effectiveness, crushing any who got in their way.  However, and more to the point of our class, they recognized the same thing as had primitive man dancing around the fire, the same thing as the philosophical Greeks, or the lusty Romans;  theatre and storytelling are powerful weapons of instruction.  So after 900 years of jugglers, musicians, mimes, and fire-dancers...the church organized theatrical plays.  First performed inside the church in Latin, later in the vernacular, and then. growing in popularity, the performances moved outside into the streets and were performed by craft guilds in festivals.

This brings us to Everyman.  It is a morality play.  More specifically it is an allegory.  This means the characters in the play represent something larger than themselves;  friendship, wealth, and death become characters.  

So, let's talk protagonists; Aristotle's character element.  In each of the three plays we have read so far, the play is named after the protagonist; Oedipus, Pseudolus,  Everyman.   Each is very different.  Each represents different things, different segments of society, different aspects of the human condition depending on the society into which they were created.  Each has different motivations, fears, directions, aspirations, actions, emotions, etc.  

Compare and contrast these three protagonists with special attention given to the points raised in the previous paragraph. Focus primarily on Everyman and how he is different from the other two.  As always, convince me you have read the play with information from the play...not just the history...and do some research. Use Line quotes to support your ideas!!!

MUST USE QUOTES FROM PLAY TO SUPPORT YOUR ESSAY!!!! essay must be 2 pages long

Norton Anthology of Drama (SET Vol 1 & 2)

• -ISBN: 9780393283495