SOURCE: Spinrad, Phoebe S. “The Last Temptation of “Everyman.” Philological Quarterly 64, no. 2 (spring 1985): 185-94.

In the following essay, Spinrad examines in-turn the temptations faced by Everyman, discussing the significance of each for both the original audience and the contemporary reader.

Because Everyman is virtually the last of the Catholic morality plays, we are often tempted to analyze it in terms of others of its kind: a soul struggles with temptations, falls into sin, is arrested by Death, and at the last moment calls on the mercy of God and is saved. Within this linear analysis, many subanalyses are possible. Lawrence V. Ryan, for example, stresses Everyman's doctrinal education, pointing out that Everyman is taught to find his way back to the Church and its sacraments before finding his way to heaven; and Allen D. Goldhammer uses Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of the dying process to show Everyman's...