Like other morality plays of the medieval and Tudor periods, the style of Everyman is primarily didactic, imparting a spiritual and moral message upon the audience. More specifically, the play argues that an attachment to such “worldly” concerns as riches, friends, and family, can serve as a distraction from worship of God and therefore an impediment to reaching heaven after death. The Messenger who opens the play comments upon the play’s didactic style:
The story saith, — Man, in the beginning,
Look well, and take good heed to the ending,
Be you never so gay!
Ye think sin in the beginning full sweet,
Which in the end causeth thy soul to weep,
When the body lieth in clay.
Here shall you see how Fellowship and Jollity,
Both Strength, Pleasure, and Beauty,
Will fade from thee as flower in May.
For ye shall hear, how our heaven king
Calleth Everyman to a general reckoning:
Give audience, and hear what he doth say.
The Messenger provides a succinct summary of the events of the play, warning the audience to pay attention to “the ending” and not just to the “beginning” in order to understand the play’s moral message. “Sin,” the Messenger argues, may seem “full sweet” at first, but at the end of an individual’s life, their various sins will make their “soul [...] weep” as they face purgatory or hell. The Messenger’s words, then, reinforce the play’s didactic intentions.
