Becket

Becket features an unusual structure and use of time. It starts and ends in Canterbury Cathedral after Becket’s death, with the King awaiting a ceremonial punishment by the monks. This scene acts as a framing device for the play. Everything between these two scenes is a flashback in which the King recalls his experiences with Becket. However, this “flashback” also takes in scenes which the King would never have witnessed, such as Becket alone at prayer. Thus, the flashback is not strictly from the King’s point of view, but rather from a more neutral perspective.

In opening the play in the “present” after Becket’s assassination, Anouilh draws attention to the importance of this historical event and Becket’s status as a saint and martyr. The King is shown from the start to be not powerful but vulnerable, pathetic, and suffering—naked physically and psychologically. The play will delve into the psychological and emotional motivations underlying the King’s actions and character, and the role that his friendship with Becket plays in this.

As the action moves back in time, the audience sees the original, pristine friendship between Becket and the King, as the two men laugh and joke together and Becket helps the King get dressed. Although they virtually behave as equals, it is implied that Becket is a sort of servant to the King—a role he happily embraces. In these early scenes, Becket is a far cry from the image of a bishop, saint, and martyr that audiences are familiar with. He is shrewd, cynical, and worldly, a lover of fine clothes, food, drink, and sex. Becket’s character will change drastically during the course of the play, while the King’s will remain essentially the same. Thus, Becket is the deeper and more regenerative character.

This becomes apparent when, during the Privy Council scene, the King praises Becket for his intellectual abilities and skill in outmaneuvering other people. Ironically, the King does not realize that in promoting Becket he is giving Becket the power to eventually dominate him. The King is counting on Becket’s blind loyalty and friendship, not knowing that Becket possesses something more: a mind and a conscience.

There are hints of Becket’s moral conscience throughout Act I. On Page 6, he tells the King of how, many years before, he defended his sister from being raped by a Norman baron. This episode foreshadows what will happen later in the act, when the King similarly tries to take advantage of a Saxon peasant girl in a cottage. In that scene, Becket shows admirable moral character in outwitting the King and protecting the girl from harm. Yet later, Becket shows a failure in moral courage when he willingly gives his girlfriend Gwendolen up to the King out of loyalty to him; this moral failure leads to Gwendolen’s suicide. However, when the peasant girl is brought to Becket’s chamber, the audience senses that he considers the action “shabby” and does not intend to take advantage of her.

The relationship between the King and Becket is partly like that between two fun-loving peers and partly like that of an irresponsible adolescent and a more mature, steady older brother. The King is amoral and stupid; Becket is intelligent and cunning. The King considers Becket a sophisticating influence on him, teaching him about the finer things of life and refining his sensibilities: “I have the impression that you and I are the only sensitive men in England…You’ve made a different man of me, in a way” (32). By contrast, Becket’s moral character will not similarly rub off on the King.

In the hunt scene, when the King and Becket take refuge in the peasant’s cottage, audiences see how out of touch the King is with ordinary life in his realm. He is unaware that the peasants lack firewood and live mostly in fear and misery. The King is also shown at his most brutish, as he barks commands to the peasant and lusts after his daughter. However, the peasant father is not idealized either; he spits on Becket even though he has just saved his daughter, then calls his daughter a “whore” and savagely beats her. Becket’s role in saving the peasant girl is an example of his showing moral initiative and independence of the King, which foreshadows his later actions as archbishop.

The existential themes of Becket are already present in Act I. For example, Becket compares hunting to the moral life: “When [the boar] turns and charges there’s a moment of delicious personal contact when one feels, at last, responsible for oneself” (16). When the King remarks that it is odd to crave danger in this way, Becket responds that “one has to gamble with one’s life to feel alive” (16). Both these lines will have strong relevance for Becket later on, as he takes on a life of moral risk and responsibility in defying the King and defending his flock. He will abandon a life of comfort, pleasure, and complacency as a crony of the King and embrace a life of courage and moral heroism.