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Analysis of T.S. Eliot's "The Murder in The Cathedral" : Religious Elements, Becket as a Passive Character, Becket’s Martyrdom and its Significance

The Religious Elements

In this play T.S. Eliot has shown how drama can still be an instrument of community in the two senses corresponding to its original function as an extension of the liturgy and as an interpretation of God's word in truest of flesh and blood.

For the purpose of his play, the audience became a congregation, having interpreted the significance of martyrdom and being invited to participate in the celebration of an act of martyrdom. Part- II has something of the quality of liturgical celebration. It is not a plain representation of the historical fact which is the spiritual realization of the Holy Communion to the Last Supper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_the_Cathedral

So the audience is invited to participate in sprite and through the act watching it links with the communion of saints. The play is about devotional morality. But it is not ordinary morality. It is drama beyond drama written as room within spiritual self-conflict of a saint. 

Becket as a Passive Character

 The character of Becket himself, around whom the whole action revolves , is disappointing . Thomas exists only for the presentation of the spiritual crisis. He is less a man, says Helen Gardener, than an embodied attitude. His role is essentially a passive one. He is assailed by the Tempters, importuned or harassed by the knights. In such a long course he finds no alternative to defend himself. He has little to do but go forward to a predetermined life nor is any of the best poetry in the play put into his mouth. While the long server, in which he explains his slightly equivocal victory over the spiritual pride, is couched in such simple prose that it lacks dramatic impact.

From the words of the Tempters, and of the chorus we learn the bare facts of Thomas’s early life. But, it seems, all the time Eliot rejects many poets as of Becket’s human qualities. Thus we find that the character of Becket is a passive one.

Becket’s Martyrdom and its Significance

  Becket’s death may be a tragedy in the sense that he is murdered . But by his death he achieves the glory of martyrdom. As Butcher says , “the death of martyrdom presents as not the defect but the victory of the individual , the issue of a conflict in which the individual is ranged on the same side as hanger powers and the sense of suffering consequently is lost in that of moral triumph”.

It may be a personal tragedy but it is a comedy as well for his death has the power to fructify the lives of others. The Canterbury women are transformed and his martyrdom. The tragedy of Becket is a contending tragedy, for in age a church must be crucified at one to God for the sins of humanity. As the chores says:

He thanks thee for thy mercies of blood for thy redemption by blood for .... shall create the holy places.

G. Wilson rightly remarks:

           “Murder in the Cathedral dramatizes Becket as a type of Christian hero, conquering palisade and attaining martyrdom.”   

   
Ardhendu De
 
Ref:
1. Murder In The Cathedral : Eliot T S : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.86641
2. Murder in the Cathedral - Wikipedia. (2009, May 8). Murder in the Cathedral - Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_the_Cathedral
3. Full text of “T.s.eliot.” (n.d.). Full Text of “T.s.eliot.” https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.227103/2015.227103.Tseliot_djvu.txt
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