Introduction
This is a free study guide to Murder in the Cathedral. Becket's return to Canterbury is clearly framed in terms that allude to Jesus' "Palm Sunday" entrance into Jerusalem. For example, the Messenger's description of how the crowds are greeting the returning Becket-"with scenes of frenzied enthusiasm, / Lining the road and throwing down their capes, / Strewing the way with leaves and late flowers of the season"-is surely intended to remind Eliot's audience of Jesus' so-called "triumphal entry" into the holy city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: "Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields" (Mark 11:8; see also parallels in Matthew 21 and Luke 19). In some Christian liturgical traditions, Palm Sunday is also called "Passion Sunday," to indicate that it is the beginning of Jesus' sufferings. Please click on the literary analysis category you wish to be displayed. Back and Next buttons can guide you through all the sections or you can choose to jump from section to section using the links below or the links at the left.
Author: Thomas Stearns Eliot
Published: March 1964
Pages: 96 pages
ISBN#: 0156632772
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