Symbolism and Religious Drama: T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral

In 1163, a quarrel began between the British King enthalpy II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, doubting Thomas Becket. The work force had been good friends, but each felt that his interests should be of elemental concern to the nation and that the other should acquiesce to his demands. Becket fled to France in 1164 in locate to rally support from the Catholic French for his cause and also seek an audience with the Pope. After being officially (although non personally) reconciled with the King, Becket saveed to England in 1170, entirely to be murdered as he prayed in Canterbury duomo by four of Henrys Knights. trine years later, he was roll in the hayonized and pilgrimsHenry among them start made their way to his tomb ever since. The allure of much(prenominal)(prenominal) a story for a turntist is obvious there is a great conflict between human and divine world-beater, a unfluctuating central grammatical case and a number of complicated spiritual issues to be demonstra te in his wipeout. In 1935, T. S. Eliot answered this calling to compose a feed for that years Canterbury Festival the result was a work that revitalized verse rompa form that had not been widely employed for almost trey hundred years.Critics flatteryd Eliots use of verse and ability to invest a gone historical tied(p)t with modern issues and themes, such as the ways in which lay persons react to the intrusion of the supernatural in their daily lives. In go away because it is a spiritual drama which appe ard long after such plays were popular, Murder in the cathedral is still performed, studied, and regarded as one of Eliots major works, a testament to his skill as a poet and dramatist.In its sound judgment of Eliots importance to modern English literature, A Literary History of England argues that a shift from desp distribute to intrust-a change from the immaterial resignation of those who breathe the small, dry air of modern spiritual emptiness to something more posi tive and potentially transcendent-can first of all be detected in Eliots Ash-Wednesday (1930), of which the theme is the search for peace found in humble and quiet ingress to divinitys Will.This theme, clearly an fount of the Anglo-Catholicism Eliot embraced during his manner, appears over again throughout Murder in the Cathedral. It informs and breathes through the entire school harbor of the play, as the commentary above has demonstrated. In Murder in the Cathedral, the inert resignation of modern life manifests itself in the let out refusal to embrace transcendency the women of Canterbury atomic number 18 content to go on living and partially living. As they state, even imploringly to Becket, on several occasions, they do not give care anything to happen. They do not want the turn over of Gods sit to begin number. As do all moderns in Eliots estimation, they fear the in nicety of men less than the justice of God. They are not ready to live, as Becket was, out of t ime. Yet, through Becket as he portrays him, Eliot forcefully argues that such transcendence must be achieved. In suffering with biblical testimony approximately the nature of spiritual power versus impermanent power, however, Eliot posits that transcendence cannot be achieved by force.It arises, not through utilitarian machinations (such as those the Four Tempters propose to Becket in Part I), but by, in the Literary Historys words, humble and quiet submission to Gods Will. As Becket himself declares, I eat my life / To the Law of God above the Law of Man. His triumphant avowal of faith echoes the words of the New Testament Whether it is right in Gods stool to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard (Acts 419-20) or again, Do you not grapple that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (James 44). Only by valuing friendship-i. e. , a total alignment of mind and soul and will-with the spiritua l, with God, everyplace such friendship with the world or the blase order of the office quo, can peace-that elusive goal referred to throughout the play in Beckets fragile relationship with King Henry as Beckets greeting to the chorus line in Parts I and II as the turning of Gods wheel of thrift-be found. In this way, the themes of Murder in the Cathedral aptly crystallize the themes of Eliots cause life-long work.The wheel was a symbol, in medieval times, of the wheel of life or the wheel of fortune, which never stands still, being constantly subject to the turns of fate (Dictionary of Symbolism, p. 379). No doubt Eliot draws on these ancient associations in his texts multiple references to the wheel, but he also subverts them by stating that, in fact, the wheel of fate-or, in Eliots Anglo-Catholic worldview, of Gods providence and plan for history-has in fact been standing still during Beckets seven-year absence from Canterbury. As discussed earlier, the length of Beckets exi le is itself of metaphorical importance, since seven symbolizes totality and completeness. ) Beckets task is to cause the wheel turning again to take his part, willingly and completely, in Gods pattern (another word-image that occurs frequently in the text) so that the wheel can resume turning and that peace can replace the mere existence of living and part living. The seasons also carry symbolic freight in Eliots play.The most notable example is the Chorus invocations of the passage of the seasons at the beginning of Part I and then(prenominal) at the end of Part II. At the beginning of the play, the passing seasons are in actuality one long season of waiting, one endless Advent. notwithstanding by the plays end, after Beckets martyrdom, the seasons in their cycle have reach part of human beings Even in us the voices of seasons . praise Thee. Eliots use of seasonal worker imagery will no doubt remind readers of his work in The harry Land (1922).That epic poems first line, April is the cruelest month, reinforces the poems dominant mood of pessimism in the memorial tablet of what Eliot sees as the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the then still-young twentieth century. As in Murder in the Cathedral, the passage of the seasons in The Waste Land is not a healthy cycle of life, final stage, and rebirth. Life has aim stuck in living and partially living. Still, even The Waste Land was not merely a poem of despair of the present but of hope and promise for the future, since at the close the thunder speaks, foretelling the coming of the life-giving rain (Baugh, p. 586). In a similar way, Murder in the Cathedral ends in hope-although more tempered by a realization of humanitys reluctance and inability to, in Beckets words, bear too much reality. Still, the redemption of the seasons is an principal(prenominal) symbolic motif in the play, as it was in Eliots earlier work. Beckets return to Canterbury is clearly framed in terms that allude to Jesus Palm sunlight entrance into Jerusalem.For example, the Messengers description of how the crowds are greeting the returning Becket-with scenes of frenzied en henceiasm, / liner the road and throwing d deliver their capes, / Strewing the way with leaves and late flowers of the season-is for sure intended to remind Eliots audience of Jesus so-called triumphal entree into the blessed city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday Many tidy sum spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the field (Mark 118 see also parallels in Matthew 21 and Luke 19).In some Christian liturgical traditions, Palm Sunday is also called making love Sunday, to indicate that it is the beginning of Jesus sufferings. Thus, Eliot strongly associates Beckets triumphal entry into Canterbury with Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem-a seeming victory procession that leads to martyrdom and death, and can therefore be considered victorious only in hindsight, through the eyes of faith , on the farthest side of resurrection. (A further allusion to the Palm Sunday narrative, incidentally, occurs when the second priest tells the women to keep silent, earning himself a rebuke from Becket.In a similar way, Jesus rebuked the religious authorities of his day for ordering the crowds who welcomed him to keep silence Jesus told them, I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out Luke 1940. ) Overall, these parallels are meant to establish Becket as a salvific Christ-figure whose death will bring the blessing of transcendence to humanity. As Eliot wrote in Beckets Christmas sermon, mourning and rejoicing ( denounce the repeated refrain, Rejoice we all, retentiveness holy day) commingle at Christmas birth and death jostling for worshipers attention martyrdom-witness-takes precedence in the churchs marking of the time.Understanding the significance of these three festival days increases our appreciation of the martyrs purpose, as exemplified in Beckets own death to make transcendence available to human. The titular hero of the biblical book of Daniel, who carcass steadfast to God (in the context of Eliots dichotomy, read spiritual) in the confront of pressures to assimilate to a pagan (read temporal) culture. Ezekiel 1414, 20 also praise Daniel as an exemplar of righteousness, even as Becket is as he faces death.Ironically, of course, Daniel, check to the Bible, was delivered from the lions den as a consequence of his faithfulness to God. No such physical deliverance awaits Becket. The archbishop does, however, seem to mirror the attitude of Daniels three friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who, confront with death in a fiery furnace for refusing to worship an idol, declared, If our God whom we religious service is able to deliver us. let him deliver us.But if not, be it cognise to you, O king that we will not serve your gods. (Daniel 317-18). Becket, worry Daniels friends, is ready to die for God (the spiritual) Do with me as you will (p. 76). Thus, the knights invocation of Daniel at this heyday in the text creates a wealth of allusive value that illuminates Eliots themes. The impending moment of Beckets martyrdom takes on an existential significance as the Chorus reflects upon what awaits humanity after death. The Chorus identifies Death s Gods silent servant, and ack instantlyledges, in orthodox fashion, that intellect awaits mortals behind the face of Death. The Chorus then, however, strikes a decidedly unorthodox tone in affirming that behind Judgment is the Void, more horrid than active shapes of hell (p. 71). In terms that again echo Eliots earlier work, The Waste Land, the Chorus describes this Void as Emptiness, absence, statutory separation from God / The horror of the effortless journey, to the empty land / Which is no land, only emptiness, absence, the Void. (p. 71).Ironically, however, it is this very Void, free of distraction, with no opportunity to avoid a true(p) gazing upon oneself, that Becket is embracing in choosing to die a martyrs death. This name and address of the Chorus indeed seems to emphasize, once more, a distinction in Eliots mind between men like Becket-the saints who cause the wheel of Gods pattern in time to turn-and modal(a) mortals, who are content-even though they deny it -to merely exist, to be only and everlastingly in Advent, only and always waiting, only and always living and partly living. Truly, we cannot bear too much realityWe do not wish to stare into the void, the abyss. But Eliot, like other existential thinkers of the twentieth century, project that peering into that abyss is fundamentally a salvific, liberating act, signified in Eliots play by the saving consequences of Beckets death for a world that would rather not be saved. Character profilesThe Chorus is an unspecified number of Canterburys women, is a corporate character serving the same(p) purposes as does the chorus in Greek drama to develop and, more impor tantly, to comment on the action of the play.The womens initial speech fairly defines their dramaturgic role We are forced to bear witness. And even this chorus, like its ancient Greek predecessors, is no mere, dispassionate, objective eyewitness rather, it is a witness bearing testimony to truth-almost as in a legal proceeding, but that analogy fails to capture the nature of the testimony the chorus offers. In commenting upon the action of Thomas Beckets murder, the women are voicing insights into, reflections on, and conclusions about time, destiny, and life and death.In the end, they emerge as representatives of ordinary people-such as those who make up the audience of the play, or its readership-people who, mired in and having settled for an existence of living and partly living, are unable to greet transcendence when it is offered to them. As they state in the plays final moments, not everyone can bear the loneliness, surrender, deprivation necessary to become a saint. Not al l can be saints-but all can pray for their intercession.Thomas Becket is the Archbishop of Canterbury, former Chancellor to King Henry II, now estranged from the monarch because he insists upon the right of the Church to rule in spiritual matters-a rule that, in practice, has ramifications for how the king ought to rule in temporal matters. Unlike the Chorus, Becket is able to stare into the existential abyss-that Void behind death and judgment, mentioned in Part II, that is more horrid than active shapes of hell. Becket is often accuse of pride in the play, but he is actually humble in submitting himself completely to the will of God as he comprehends it. His death offers a glimpse of how transcendence can be achieved the only question that remains is whether the rest of humanity is able to trace the same path, to give its life / To the Law of God above the Law of Man. The Four Tempters present Becket, in Part I of the drama, with various ways of avoiding his impending death as a m artyr.Their temptations correlate, to one degree or another, with the justifications of Beckets assassination offered to the audience by The Four Knights at the end of the play. In a prefatory note to the plays third edition (1937), Eliot indicated that the roles of the Tempters had been intended to be doubled-that is, played by the same actors-as the roles of the Knights, thus underscoring the connection between the two quartets in an even stronger fashion.The Three Priests serve the (admittedly little) dramatic action of Eliots play, particularly in Part II, when they exhort Becket to bar the doors of the Cathedral against the knights-although they characterize them as savage beasts-who seek his life. They could thus be seen as representing the temporal order indeed, Becket at one point accuses them of thinking only as the world does-You argue by results, as this world does. On the other hand, the Priests also are capable of fling insight into the spiritual order.For example, th e Third Priest affirms the Churchs endurance in the face of world built on the ruins of the presumed absence of God and earlier, he offers a key interpretive insight by stating, Even now, in close particulars / The eternal design may appear. Like so many of us, then, the priests have one foot, so to speak, in the spiritual and the other in the temporal and they struggle to balance the two orders as best they can, as do we all.Unfortunately, according to the argument of Eliots drama, there can ultimately be no balancing peace-that is to say, transcendence-is to be found only in the complete submission to Gods design, Gods pattern, Gods wheel of providence. Mortals, say both Jesus and Eliot, cannot serve two masters-and so the Priests are fundamentally impotent, unable to do anything but to pray to God with heavy reliance upon the intercession of Saint Becket, as they, in their own way but like the Chorus, go on living and partly living.