NON-AFRICAN DRAMA ROBERT BOLT: A Man For All Seasons Examine the role of the common man in the play.

Answer Details

The Common Man is one of the most distinctive features of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. A single actor plays this figure, who steps in and out of many small roles and speaks directly to the audience, and through him Bolt shapes the meaning, structure and moral vision of the play.

Narrator and commentator. The Common Man's primary role is to serve as narrator and chorus. He introduces scenes, comments on the action, and addresses the audience directly, guiding them through the events surrounding Thomas More. His wry, down-to-earth remarks provide continuity and help the audience follow the political and moral drama.

A master of many parts. The Common Man takes on numerous minor roles, including More's servant Matthew, the boatman, the innkeeper, the jailer, the foreman of the jury and finally the headsman. This device allows Bolt to stage the play economically, but more importantly it makes the Common Man a pervasive presence at every turn of More's fortunes, from prosperity to prison to execution.

Representative of ordinary humanity. As his name suggests, the Common Man stands for the average person, guided chiefly by self-interest and the instinct for survival. He is not wicked, but he is willing to go along with whatever keeps him safe and comfortable, avoiding trouble and taking no moral stand. In this he is the deliberate foil to More, whose refusal to compromise his conscience throws the Common Man's easy accommodation into sharp relief.

A device of theme and irony. Through the Common Man, Bolt explores the theme of conscience versus self-preservation. The Common Man survives every upheaval precisely because he never risks anything for principle, whereas More dies because he will not bend. His closing address, inviting the audience to stay out of trouble and keep alive, is deeply ironic, exposing the moral cost of mere survival. He also creates a Brechtian distancing effect that keeps the audience thinking rather than simply feeling.

Conclusion. The Common Man functions as narrator, as a versatile player of many small parts, and above all as a representative of ordinary self-interested humanity who contrasts with the heroic More. Through him Bolt guides the audience, structures the drama, and drives home the play's central question of whether one should live by conscience or merely to survive.