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Everyman

The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character,[3][4] the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them.

For other uses, see Everyman (disambiguation).

Narrative uses[edit]

An everyman is described with the intent that most audience members can readily identify with him. Although the everyman may face the same difficulties that a hero might, archetypal heroes react rapidly and vigorously by manifest action, whereas an everyman typically avoids engagement or reacts ambivalently, until the situation, growing dire, demands effective reaction to avert disaster. Such a "round", dynamic character—that is, a character showing complexity and development—is generally a protagonist.[10]


Or if lacking complexity and development—thus a "flat", static character—then the everyman is a secondary character. Especially in literature, there is often a narrator, as the written medium enables extensive explication of, for example, previous events, internal details, and mental content. An everyman narrator may be noticed little, whether by other characters or sometimes even by the reader. A narrating everyman, like Ché in the musical Evita,[11][12] may even address the audience directly.

– wholly average person

Average Joe

– person neither nobility, royalty, nor priesthood

Commoner

– Dutch medieval morality play

Elckerlijc

– freedom to roam

Everyman's right

– British generic average man

Joe Bloggs

– generic everyman used in English-speaking countries

John Doe

– generic, hypothetical "common man"

John Q. Public

– everyman being overwhelmed by vast, dehumanizing social labyrinth

Kafkaesque

– hypothetical reasonable Australian

Man on the Bondi tram

Person having ordinary skill in the art

– term helping a jury interpret a law's wording

Reasonable person

Straight man

acronym for "the celebrated man in the street"

T.C. Mits

– hypothetical reasonable person

The man on the Clapham omnibus

– Portuguese everyman

Zé Povinho