Submitted By :Muhammad umer

Roll No :- 51687
Subject :- Drama 2
Semester BS 6

QUESTION:
Explain how the play reveal the dispute between suffering and action and in what way the
play indebted to it's history? In what way it is unconcerned with it's history?   Give references
from the play Murder in the Cathedral?

ANSWER:

MURDER IN THE CATHERAL:

Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T.S. Eliot, first performed in 1935, that portrays the
assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry
II in 1170. Eliot drew heavily on the writing of Edward Grim, a clerk who was an eyewitness to
the event.

The plot of the play is simple. Real historical figures serve as the main characters of Murder in
the Cathedral. Being devoted to the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury
Cathedral in 1170, the play suddenly sharpens the conflict between religion and faith in a
person.

The idea that T. S. Elliot was trying to convey in the play is the tragedy of a man torn by inner
contradictions. Killed by order of his royal majesty King Henry II, the one who used to be his
friend, Becket had tried to hush down the thirst for the royal power, but the sin turned out to
be stronger than the King himself. The peculiar fact is that the play contained so many debating
issues that some of its parts had to be cut out. Otherwise, the censors would not bear it.

Some material that the producer asked Eliot to remove or replace during the writing was
transformed into the poem "Burnt Norton".
The action occurs between 2 and 29 December 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the
martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France. Becket's internal
struggle is a central focus of the play.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one takes place in the Archbishop Thomas Becket's hall
on 2 December 1170. The play begins with a Chorus singing, foreshadowing the coming
violence. The Chorus is a key part of the drama, with its voice changing and developing during
the play, offering comments about the action and providing a link between the audience and
the characters and action, as in Greek drama. Three priests are present, and they reflect on the
absence of Becket and the rise of temporal power. A herald announces Becket’s arrival. Becket
is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom, which he embraces, and which is
understood to be a sign of his own selfishness—his fatal weakness. The tempters arrive, three
of whom parallel the Temptations of Christ.

The Interlude of the play is a sermon given by Becket on Christmas morning 1170. It is about
the strange contradiction that Christmas is a day both of mourning and rejoicing, which
Christians also do for martyrs. He announces at the end of his sermon, "it is possible that in a
short time you may have yet another martyr". We see in the sermon something of Becket's
ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as inevitable
and part of a better whole.

Part II of the play takes place in the Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, 29 December 1170.
Four knights arrive with "Urgent business" from the king. These knights had heard the king
speak of his frustration with Becket and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket. They
accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public, and
they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect
himself, but he refuses. The knights leave and Becket again says he is ready to die. The chorus
sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of their lives,
both temporal and spiritual. The chorus again reflects on the coming devastation. Thomas is
taken to the Cathedral, where the knights break in and kill him. The chorus laments: “Clear the
air! Clean the sky!", and "The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts and ourselves defiled
with blood." At the close of the play, the knights step up, address the audience, and defend
their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in the right spirit, sober, and
justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and state power.

CRITICISM BY ELIOTS:
In 1951, in the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture at Harvard University, Eliot criticised
his own plays in the second half of the lecture, explicitly the plays Murder in the Cathedral, The
Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party. The lecture was published as Poetry and Drama and
later included in Eliot's 1957 collection On Poetry and Poets.

CONFLICT BETWEEN “ACTION” AND “SUFFERING”:

Reflecting on the conflict described by Eliot, I would like to make a commentary that it had
three significant ideas underlying it. These ideas are fully displayed by the Murder in the
cathedral characters.

The conflict between "action" and "suffering" is at the center of the play, and it is one of the
many contradictions that Thomas realizes he must embrace if he is to transcend his earthly
limitations in favor of godly serenity. It is first useful to understand both terms in the context of
the play.

Action can be defined as:

"Action" refers to man's attempts to influence his own fate, to declare his own individuality.

While suffering can be defined as:

"Suffering" is best defined as "patient endurance," rather than "painful sensation," and in
this way refers to man's impulse to retreat, to hide his individuality in complacency.

Thomas notes that this dichotomy seems like an irreconcilable contradiction to humans, but
ultimately discovers that he should embrace an active patience, in which he willingly allows
himself to be submissive as God's instrument. He will not seek martyrdom, but will allow it to
happen because God wills it. Ultimately, his example leads the Chorus to embrace the
contradiction as beyond man and available only to those who submit themselves to God.

PLAY INDEBTED TO ITS HISTORY AND UNCONCERNED

WITH ITS HISTORY:
Eliot wrote his play for an audience that would have been ostensibly quite familiar with the
story of Thomas Becket and Henry II, so there is little attempt outside of minor exposition to tell
the story. Yet the play certainly relies on foreknowledge of the story to achieve its effect. First,
Eliot makes it clear early on that he has little interest in psychology. When Thomas is
confronted by the four Tempters, an informed audience can realize that each tempter
represents a certain aspect of the Archbishop's personality or past. Further, they represent
different historical perspectives on the man. That Thomas so fully repudiates them all reveals
that Eliot wishes to present Thomas as a man who accepted his place as myth. The political
arguments that Thomas has with the knights make mention of historical details like
excommunications and exile, but Thomas makes it clear that his decision is not indebted to that
way of thinking. Eliot's Thomas is more a reflection of an idea or a philosophy than a complex,
rounded historical figure. However, Eliot's use of liturgy and Greek tragedy in shaping the play
reveals this as a deliberate choice. Overall, Eliot tells this story on a higher level, one which
barely needs history at all in order to deliver its message.

CONCLUSION:
The Murder in the Cathedral analysis shows that there was the only battle in the play that
mattered. It was the battle between the devil and God in a human soul. Unfortunately, we are
composed of both. It is us to decide who will win in this battle. I would argue that Murder in the
Cathedral doesn’t so much concern the conflict between the individual and the state as that
between an individual representing a higher social and moral principle and a particular kind of
state. Individualism as we understand it today didn’t really exist in the Middle Ages, when the
play is set. People saw themselves as part of a large community in which they fulfilled
important social roles. Even when select individuals retreated from the world to become nuns,
monks, and friars, they did so in furtherance of a higher principle; in withdrawing from society,
they were serving the Almighty.

Thomas Becket sees himself in just such a light. As a man of his time he has no problem with
the state as such; it’s the nature of that state that arouses his opposition to the king. On his
understanding, the state is not purely secular; it has a spiritual dimension too. Becket’s view is
entirely consistent with Eliot’s own belief in the centrality of the Church of England in the
nation’s public life. For both Becket and Eliot, just as the state isn’t entirely secular, nor is the
Church wholly clerical in its role and functions.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket was exiled from England by King Henry II due to
political conflicts which occurred between them seven years before the beginning of the play.
Having spent those years in France, Becket has decided to return to England and take up his old
position in the Church. Symbolically hinted at by the fact that he’s the only character given a
proper name in the play (even Henry II is just referred to as “the king”), Becket is the central
pivot point of Murder in the Cathedral, meaning that every other character can be defined in
terms of how they relate to Becket’s character and outlook. Becket’s staunch devotion to God
and fate over anything that occurs in the everyday world of human social and political affairs
makes him into something of a black hole around which the otherwise ordinary humans
surrounding him revolve. The priests, while religious, have an idea of fate that conflicts with
Becket’s decision to become a martyr, though they eventually adopt his outlook. The Chorus,
however, totally refrains from having a properly religious acceptance of fate and of Becket’s
martyrdom, for they fear that their lives will fall into spiritual shambles if Becket dies. The
tempters—with their various temptations and arguments—are all defined by how they think
Becket should balance and navigate between his religious and political powers. Mirroring
the second tempter’s position, the king is totally opposed to Becket’s devotion to God, as Henry
II only cares about his own, political power—over and above that of God. The knights follow in
the king’s footsteps, murdering Becket because they think his devotion to God is too radical and
politically rebellious. Following through with his martyrdom, Becket shuns the world of partial,
human values and desires, sending a tectonic shock into the lives around him.

There is nothing remotely unusual about Becket’s worldview here. In defying the king, the
errant Archbishop is standing up for a venerable tradition of which he believes the English
Church to be a part. That tradition insists on the Church authorities enjoying certain ancient
privileges which it is simply unacceptable for the secular authorities to encroach upon. The right
of the Church to try certain cases through its ecclesiastical courts is jealously guarded by
Becket, and he won’t back down from defending that right, even if it means incurring the wrath
of his former close friend King Henry II. Becket’s defiance of the king may be an incredible act of
individual bravery, but as with every other noble act in medieval times, it is expressly designed
to serve the common interest, in this case that of Christendom as a whole.