Amanda Mims' Meditation #9

Everyman one of the best known morality plays from the Middle Ages; Hamlet is one of the best known Shakespearean tragedies, but both being the best known from their era is not where the similarities between the two plays stop. Shakespeare was a playwright that was constantly influenced by many things, Greek and Roman tragedies and comedies as well as plays from the Middle Ages. While reading Everyman each character had what I recognized as a counterpart in Hamlet. Take for instance King Hamlet, he returns as a ghost to tell his son of the wrong that was done and how he must be avenged. The ghost is so similar to death, sent to Earth with a message, a message that ends up sending the one that was told on a journey, The journey in Everyman made by Everyman is very similar to that made by Hamlet; once one leaves there is no return. The Fellowship that Everyman approaches supports what is happening, just as Horatio supports Hamlet’s decision to avenge his father’s death. However, when asked to accompany Everyman, Fellowship quickly flees the scene. Hamlet and Horatio have a similar relationship to that of Everyman and Fellowship; he’s there to back him up until it actually comes down to it and then he’s just too afraid. So both men, Everyman and Hamlet, conclude that blood is thicker than water, but in both plays even the kin refuse to help or see the other side. In Everyman the kin ask, no beg, to be excused. Hamlet attempts to talk to his mother, after talking with the ghost again, to confess her sins but again blood actually is not thicker than water.