Everyman Loss of Youth, Loss Term Paper

Everyman must lose this false confidence, and lose his life, to truly understand the higher purpose of the human soul and existence, as Everyman prepares himself for the final passage -- and so must we all, good and bad.

But in "Peter Pan" there is a lack of moral apportioning to children along the lines of the laws of adult life. Wendy, who seems to be the most thoughtful and responsible of all the Peter Pan characters, pays with her youth and takes on adult responsibility unlike the title protagonist, who also transgresses but never feels remorse and never pays for any hurt he does to the girl. Thus, loss, both plays suggest, is an inevitable part of human life, but Barrie is far less positive about what this loss leaves.Loss for Barrie means the loss of carefree and amoral youth and the loves of youth, while loss in the Christian allegory of "Everyman" means the loss of the body and the loss of the illusions of the material world.

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H., a Glossary of Literary Terms: Fourth Edition Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981.

Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. Online Literature Library. Updated 29-Jun-1999. www.literature.org/authors/barrie-james-matthew/the-adventures-of-peterpan/chapter-01.html

Barrie, J.M. "Peter Pan." London: Routledge, 1950.

Desmet, D. "The Parable of the Talents in Everyman." Winter 1997 Everyman and the Parable of the Talents at http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~cdesmet/talents.htm

Everyman." Edited by a.C. Crawley. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961.....