43 pages • 1 hour read
T. S. EliotMurder in the Cathedral
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Scene 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Scene 2 Summary
The scene switches to Canterbury Cathedral. Becket is now with the priests, who have barred the door. Becket orders them to “throw open the doors” (70), asserting that the church should always be open, even to enemies. The priests argue that the knights are not normal enemies; they are beasts who do not respect the sanctuary of the church. Becket repeats his order to open the doors, chiding the priests for focusing on worldly matters. He has made the decision to commit to his imminent martyrdom and explains that this decision takes place outside time and beyond the earthly world. He is convinced that the only legitimate way for him to defeat his enemies is to accept his suffering in the name of God.
The priests open the doors to the cathedral. The knights enter, showing the effects of the alcohol. The priests again try to hide Becket, and the knights demand that he reveal himself. Thomas Becket steps forward “without fear” (72), announcing that he is ready to sacrifice himself in the name of Jesus Christ. The knights demand that he absolve anyone excommunicated by Becket, resign his position, return all money he has taken to the king, and submit himself to the crown once again. Becket reiterates that he is “ready to die” (73). The knights accuse him of being a traitor, then draw their swords and kill him.
As Becket dies, the chorus calls out for the cleaning of the air and the sky, as the world has been “defiled with blood” (74). This outcome should have been avoided; the chorus simply wanted to continue in a world where suffering seemed limited and understandable. Now, Becket’s death has filled the chorus with a despair that is out of proportion and unknowable. The chorus finishes, and the knights turn to the audience. The first knight, Reginald Fitz Urse, announces that the other knights will soon argue in defense of what they have done about this “extremely complex problem” (76).
The second knight, William de Traci, admits that the knights were not motivated by personal gain to kill the archbishop; they were following orders and doing their duty to the king. They even felt the need to mentally prepare themselves for such a daunting task, which is why they drank so much before they killed Becket. They accept that many people will be angry and that the king, for political reasons, will punish them with exile.
The third knight, Hugh de Morville, tells the audience that the archbishop lied to the king and betrayed the power of his positions. The king made Becket both Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chancellor because he truly believed that Becket was qualified enough to perform both roles. Had Becket simply obeyed the king, De Morville says, then an ideal duality of spiritual and earthly powers would have been created. Instead, Becket cheated King Henry by resigning as Chancellor and challenging the policies of the king. These policies were those which he himself had supported just a short time earlier. Becket became radically, fanatically devoted to religion, De Morville says, and elevated the divine above the crown, believing the two to be incompatible. De Morville insists that he and the knights have done their duty and that the audience should applaud them and must share in any guilt attributed to the knights.
The fourth knight, Richard Brito, insists that the archbishop was responsible for his own murder. Brito believes that Becket lost his mind and his grip on reality, becoming a “monster of egotism” (81). Becket stopped caring about the country, Brito believes, and cared only about himself. He also states that Becket conspired to bring about his own martyrdom and provoked the knights into killing him, even opening the cathedral doors. According to Brito, Becket’s actions are tantamount to suicide. Previously, Becket showed himself capable of great things, but now, his actions show that he suffered from “Suicide while of Unsound Mind” (81). The first knight urges the audience to return quietly to their home and avoid any public outcry.
The knights exit. The priests address the audience. According to the first priest, Becket’s murder has harmed the Christian Church. The third priest does counters that the Church is stronger after the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Though the knights have departed, the third priest speaks to them, urging them to leave England. He believes that the knights will attempt to justify their actions for the rest of their lives, tormenting themselves by “pacing forever in the hell of make-believe” (83). However, he also suggests that they are just as much bound by fate as the archbishop was. The third priest thanks God for giving them a new saint: Thomas Becket.
The chorus praises God, stating that everything that exists is a reflection and an affirmation of God, and that humanity must acknowledge God through thought and action and praise God for turning Canterbury into a holy place due to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. The chorus asks God for forgiveness, confessing that the thought of surrendering entirely to God is scary but is also a necessary demonstration of faith. The play ends with the chorus calling on God for mercy and calling on the martyred Becket to “pray for us” (86).
Part 2, Scene 2 Analysis
The second half of Part 2 describes the titular murder, and by this point, Becket has come to terms with The Inevitability of Fate and thoroughly understands The Nature of Suffering, abandoning any sense that his death is a vain act. After the internal transformation detailed in the Interlude, he has put his selfishness behind him, and as he turns to the chorus to offer reassurance, his serenity and calm emphasize the degree to which he has accepted his role in God’s plan. In his sermon, Becket has already spoken about the joyous mourning inherent in the Christian celebration of martyrdom and suggests that a true martyr is a person who has willingly given up their life to God. His words now become manifest as he welcomes the knights into the cathedral and invites them to strike him down, for he knows that when they do so, he will become more powerful than they could possibly imagine. However, Becket’s attempts to soothe the chorus are unsuccessful, for despite his sermon, the chorus cannot help but lament his death and question the moral state of the universe. Although Becket’s surety make provide them with some comfort in the long term, the immediate trauma of his death demonstrates the violent profanity of the knights’ actions.
After Becket’s murder, the play the pretense of the mediaeval setting and switches into a more modern, conversational tone as the knights break the fourth wall and directly address the audience in a vain attempt to rationalize their drastic actions. As they struggle to defend themselves against the implicit condemnation of the audience, it is clear that their crime has caused such a seismic shift that their guilt cannot be contained within the confines of the stage. Like the tempters standing before Becket, the knights now stand before the audience and try to elicit sympathy with a false defense. Their feeble attempts to blame Becket for his own death lay bare the fragility of their premises, and the more strident their defense becomes, the more pronounced their guilt grows, and they prove incapable of banishing their own ruinous self-doubt. The drunken adrenaline of the moment has faded, and they see themselves in a terrible new light. However, they still fail to admit their sin and surrender their earthly authority to a higher power, as Becket has irrefutably done.
The play ends with the priests reflecting on the scene as the dramatic shifts of the knights’ defense fades and only the religious institution remains. The staging of these final moments reinforces The Conflict between Earthly and Spiritual Concerns, for after the brutal immediacy of the knights’ violent actions and frantic attempts at defense, the religious powers yet endure. The knights’ names are largely forgotten by history, while Thomas Becket and his terrible murder remain widely known through the ages.
Just as the chorus opened the play, it now takes the stage to deliver the final lines, echoing the conventions of ancient Greek tragedies, in which the chorus would conclude each performance with a definitive pronouncement on the play’s inherent meaning. Now, placed amidst a conflict between earthly authorities and religious forces, the common women of Canterbury deliver a damning indictment of the world in poetic form, combining dark and ominous descriptions of the collapse of the natural world with the moral decay that they have witnessed. The chorus predicted that the world would fall into spiritual ruin should Becket be killed, and now, as he lies dead on the cathedral floor, their profound horror confirms the truth of their collective premonition.
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