The Play of Adam (Le Jeu d'Adam) Literary Elements

Allegorical play

The play was originally written in French and it was later translated in various foreign languages, including English.

The action described here takes place in the distant past but the exact location is not mentioned.

Because this is a play, there is no narrator and no point of view. Instead, each character transmits their ideas and point of view from a subjective point of view through their direct dialogues.

The tone and mood is generally a neutral one.

Each part has a different protagonist and antagonist. For example, in the first part of the play, the protagonists are Adam and Eve and the antagonist is the serpent.

The first part of the play reaches its climax when the primordial couple is punished for their actions.

The second part of the poem reaches its climax when Cain kills Able.

The negative way in which the primordial couple is portrayed in the first part of the play foreshadows the later instances in which the characters will be portrayed as disobedient.

We have an understatement in the first part of the play when the serpent claims nothing will happen to Adam and Eve if they behave in a disobedient way. This is later proven to be an understatement when the primordial couple is punished for their actions.

The main allusion in the play is the idea that humans have to be obedient and always listen to what is written in the Bible if they want to live a happy and meaningful life.

One of the most important images in the play is the way in which Paradise is described in the first part of the play. This image is important because it represents complete perfection and the way God designed humans to be and the state from which humans walked away from.

We have a paradoxical element in the second part of the play when God decides to punish Cain by banishing him rather than killing him.

No parallelism is present in the play.

We have a personification in the line "and the apple was calling to them".

The author uses a few dramatic devices. The most commonly found one is the stage directions used by the author to describe the context in which the action takes place. The fourth wall is also used here as a way through which the characters transmit their wisdom and their advice directly to the audience.