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Eduncle posted an MCQ
October 16, 2019 • 17:24 pm 0 points
  • UGC NET
  • English

?The last temptation is the greatest treason

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.? (T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral) Why is the ?temptation?, ?treason? for the speaker of the lines ?

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    Eduncle Best Answer

    Murder in the Cathedral was first staged in the Chapter House in Canterbury Cathedral on 15 June 1935. This verse drama is based on the events leading to the murder in Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 29 December 1170. The play is set in the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket at the behest of King Henry II, and the principal focus is on Becket's internal struggles.
    As he reflects on the inevitable martyrdom he faces, his tempters arrive, like characters in a Greek drama, or like Job's comforters, and question the archbishop about his plight, echoing in many ways Christ's temptations in the wilderness when he has been fasting for 40 Days.
    The play was written at the prompting of the Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, a friend of the martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and later one of the key critics of the excesses of violence unleashed in World War II.
    The first tempter offers Becket the prospect of physical safety; the second tempter offers him power, riches and fame in serving the king so that he can disarm the powerful and help the poor; then the third tempter suggests the archbishop should form an alliance with the barons and seize a chance to resist the king and finally the fourth tempter urges Thomas to look to the glory of martyrdom. Thomas Becket responds to the fourth tempter:
    Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
    Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
    The last temptation is the greatest treason:
    To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

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