There is now general critical agreement about Anouilh's Becket. Formerly docile to the random quality of life, willing to play whatever role is offered him, without an honor of his own to value, agnostic if not atheistic, Becket determines finally to consummate his life in the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. His heightened sense of aesthetics tells him that the role he embraces to give meaning to his existence must finally protect the honor of God at all costs…. [His] is not a death which draws on adamant convictions about the truth of the church's position in the conflict. His criterion is an aesthetic view of human morality, and what gives his role authenticity, what makes its artificial behavior timelessly Becket's own behavior is his selection of death as the means to unadulterated selfhood. What has not been examined critically within the play, however, is one of the...