Various Aspects of T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral

Name of Author : Ishtiaq Ahmad & Shahnawaz Ahmad

Abstract: T. S. Eliots, Murder in the Cathedral, was originally written for the Canterbury festival and tells the story of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Beckett (1118-70) by Henry IIs henchmen. It is essentially an extended lyrical consideration of the proper residence of temporal and spiritual power, of the obligations of religious believers to the commands of the State, and of the possibility that piety can be selfish unto sin. It is this kind of interplay and the confrontation between Church and State which informed society at its healthiest. It was men like Beckett and the Knights, willing to sacrifice even their lives in discharging their respective duties, who created the great Western institutions. So long as there were men like Beckett for the State to reckon with, to stand as moral examples and human rebukes to the power of the State, there existed a serious counterbalance to the worst excesses of that power. Indeed, such was the weight of Christian revulsion against this murder that Henry had to scourge himself publicly to atone for it. This article attempts to examine T. S. Eliots short play, Murder in the Cathedral especially in terms of the traditional image of the turning wheel and the still point.

Keywords : T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Church, the Turning Wheel, the Still Point.

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