“I think this had better be all there is. Going on and on, remembering still more… but why not remember?” (11)
Everyman is a story of great pain and joy to me. Being so young was put into an eerie perspective by the end of the novel. My life is illustrated by such blessings and ease that Everyman brought my own future into a wider range of perceptible possibilities. I question(ed): mortality, death, life, pain, love, my health, and the point of everything.
I was able to comprehend one thing:
Don’t fuck up.
The novel serves the same purpose as the original medieval play. It acts as an instructional guide. The play’s goal was that of showing you how to better your own life. The book follows suit. You identify with the unnamed man, who is not really that different from you or I.
Who was he? Was he me or was he you?
Is this our lives?
This character fights his death and his life. He loves and mistakes. And he feels so much pain. He is perceptible to jealousy; he is not a hero.
Our ages change everything. His experience seem foreign and impossible to me at first. I tell myself I will not demonstrate his weaknesses, I will live my life right, correctly, and happily go into the grave, a life well lived. But, as the novel comes to an end, no one dies happy for the grave. They all have their own circumstances and pain that surprised and saddened them and the world.
I want a happy ending.
“During the night, when he had awakened to see the forms behind the curtain, he couldn't help but think, The doctors are killing him.” (28)
“In that moment of terror when they lowered the ether mask over his face as though to smother him, he could have sworn the surgeon, whoever he was, had whispered, "Now I'm going to turn you into a girl."” (29)
I loved these paragraphs, and their ideas.
Idle fears, dismissed by our age; we learn that these aren’t possible. Doctor’s don’t kill or cut for sadistic reasons.
But what makes these quotes so beautiful is the fear. It’s pure, undiluted or weak fear. These thoughts are inhibited once you reach an age. The eyes of a child see differently. There are boogey-men. There is magic. And Death is just a monster. We can slay monsters, and this is a truth, too. We fight death, but as everyman searches for his own survival he brings into question his ideals. Why are you alive? What strength is required to actually go into death’s realm?
A world where everyone is the same.
He isn’t strong enough to die. Yet, when he’s ready to live and fight again with renewed vigour, he loses it all. His life ends so suddenly. It is a tragedy.
"’When am I going to get out of here? I'm missing the fall of 1967." The surgeon listened soberly, and then, with a smile, he said, "Don't you get it yet? you almost missed everything?"’(41)
I don’t think he was able to see the possibilities in his future or the blessings of his past, but maybe he suffers like all of us?
We’re preoccupied, and the book proves this, with normalcy and maintaining our routine. The quote above illustrates how the everyman did not see the blessing in front him, by his requirement to trudge on.
Is that my position?
Death, are you testing us?
DEATH
“…It’s because it is for her as it is for everyone. It’s because life’s most disturbing intensity is death. It’s because death is so unjust. It’s because once one has tasted life, death does not even seem natural.” (169)
There are so many different points of view.
Death is necessary and death is here. But, it isn’t natural anymore, is it? We want to fight it. We don’t believe death.
“In a matter of minutes, everybody had walked---wearily and tearfully walked away from our species’ least favourite activity—and he was left behind. Of course, as when anyone dies, though many were grief-stricken, others remained unperturbed or found themselves relieved, or, for reasons good or bad, were genuinely pleased.” (15)
We (don’t) want to say goodbye.
Or prove that we are (im)penetrable.
Or maybe, we want satisfaction.
I’d like to say goodbye to Everyman. He lived a life, albeit fictional. But all fiction comes from reality. We are meant to see ourselves in his struggle.
“He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start.” (182)
Just when you’re ready, it all goes to shit.
Don’t just sit there, MOVE IT!
Bibliography:
Roth, Philip. "Everyman." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment