[In the folowing essay, Stroupe argues that a recurring pattern of references to fathers, sons, and brothers in Becket constitutes "one of the central methods by which Anouilh links the many aspects of the quarrel between church and state, between Becket and Henry."]

Every one who is sure of his mind, or proud of his office, or anxious about his duty assumes a tragic mask. He deputes it to be himself and transfers to it almost all his vanity. While still alive and subject, like all existing things, to the undermining flux of his own substance, he has crystallized his soul into an idea, and more in pride than in sorrow he has offered up his life on the altar of the Muses.

George Santayana

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, for "Le royaume de Dieu se défend comme les autres royaumes." Faced with death Becket simply says, "Ah! Voilàenfin la bêtise. C'est son heure." He is destroyed in the performance of the Vespers ritual. But it 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 central methods by which Anouilh links the many aspects of the quarrel between church and state, between Becket and Henry: the use of continuing familial imagery. For enemies refer to each other as father, son, or brother. Members of the church deny kinship, and the parental nature of societal structures is emphasized throughout the play.

The familial strand is at its most determinate in the form of the genealogy of the two central protagonists, for it initially sets each in his place in the world. Henry, hedged around by rank, race, and ancestry, is the Norman king by right of conquest and the law of primogeniture. Becket, on the other hand, says he is a "double bâtard." His admission describes not only his natal and political illegitimacy, but the transgressions of his parents which are the real source of the shame he has in his Saxon ancestry. "Mes parents," Becket says to Henry, "avaient pu conserver leurs biens en acceptant de collaborer, comme on dit, avec le roi votre père. … " He realizes that his Saracen mother had betrayed her own people to save his crusader father. In turn his father had collaborated with the victorious Normans in order that he might retain and augment his fortune.

Mon père était un homme très sévère. Je ne me serais jamais permis de son vivant, de l'interroger sur ses sentiments profonds. Et sa mort n'a rien éclairci, naturellment. Il a su faire, en collaborant, une assez grosse fortune; comme c'était, d'autre part, un homme de rigueur, j'imagine qu'il s'est arrangé pour la faire en accord avec sa conscience. Il y a làun petit tour de passe-passe que les hommes de rigueur réussissent assez bien, en période troublée.

An implicit thought in Becket's mind must be that he is following too faithfully in his parents' footsteps.

A further irony is that his parents' love story has become a song which is a constant reminder of Becket's shame. "Fais-lui donc jouer la complainte qu'on a faite sur ta mère, Becket. C'est celle que je préfère," demands Henry. And to Becket's reply, "Je n'aime pas qu'on chante cette complainte-là, mon prince," the king questions: "Pourquoi? Tu as honte d'être le fils d'une Sarrasine?" When Gwendolen sings the song of "Beau Sire Gilbert" who went to war to "Délivrer le cœur / De notre Seigneur / Chex les Sarrasins," Henry interrupts: "Moi, c'est une histoire qui me tire les larmes, mon fils. … Je me demande bien pourquoi tu n'aimes pas qu'on la chante, cette chansonlà? … C'est merveilleux d'être un enfant de l'amour! Moi, quand je vois la tête de mes augustes père et mère, je tremble en pensant àce qui a dû se passer … C'est merveilleux que ta mère ait fait évader ton père et qu'elle soit venue le retrouver à Londres avec toi dans son ventre. Chante-nous la fin, toi, j'adore la fin." Gwendolen sings "doucement":

Lors au Saint ÉvêqueDemanda un prêtrePour la baptiserEt en fit sa femmeLui donnant son âme

Pour toujours l'aimer.
Gai! gai! mon cœur est aise
  D'être plein d'amour
Gai! gai! mon cœur est aise
    D'être aimé toujours …

Becket, the professional aesthete, does not obtain pleasure from this artistic recital of his heritage. Yet, when the abstract principle of his parents' love for each other is set against Henry's concrete image of his own "augustes père et mère" and his revulsion, "je tremble en pensant à ce qui a dû se passer," who would deny that Becket's heritage is the better one?

Familial imagery also depicts the fragmented nature of England under Henry's reign. A Saxon peasant's inability to protect his daughter and her willing cooperation in her own shame become a vignette that exemplifies the breakdown of a central unit of society. In a broader sense each rape of a Saxon girl by a Norman overlord is a replay of the rape of England at Hastings one hundred years before. Finally, Becket himself is the center of a scene that emblematizes the incoherent nature of life in an England whose father does not recognize half his children. It occurs just after the suicide of Gwendolen. Becket, as helpless as any Saxon peasant, has been unable to protect her from the King's predatory nature—which on this occasion is the direct result of Henry's sibling-like jealousy. The death of Gwendolen has not stirred the King's heart to feelings of remorse or guilt. He is obsessed with the thought that "Elle aurait aussi bien pu me tuer, moi!" Becket reassures and comforts him, and like a father, watches over him during his nightmare-ridden sleep. As he does so he muses over England's disjointed state: "Mon prince … Si tu était mon vrai prince, si tu étais de ma race, comme tout serait simple. De quelle tendresse je t'aurais entouré, dans un monde en ordre, mon prince."

The most important illustration of familial metaphor occurs when Henry appoints Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, and it signals a major change in Becket's character. For the dispossessed Saxon Becket, the Primacy of England becomes the source of both ancestry and heritage. He is in effect reborn, but it is the method of his rebirth that is most significant. It is as if, by his recognition of the late Archbishop as "le premier Normand qui se soit intéressé àmoi" and who "a véritablement été comme un père pour moi," he comes into his inheritance not because of Henry, but also by right of primogeniture. Here, as well as acquiring spiritual parents—for he has exchanged mother England for mother church—he is also given what he calls the "l'honneur de Dieu" to protect. "Le royaume de Dieu se défend comme les autres royaumes." He likens this honour to "un enfant-roi poursuivi" and describes his first duty: "défendre cet enfant àmoi confié, qui est nu." Thus Becket as Archbishop becomes a potent father-figure, secure in ancestry and issue, and endowed with patriarchal dignity. Henry, who only a few days before had jokingly called Becket "Père," does not understand the significance of the change. He still thinks of Becket as the mock-father, mock-brother, and the mock-son of their old relationship. But—as the insistent family analogy hammers home—by exchanging the seal of England for the See of Canterbury, Becket has become the King's spiritual father, and they no longer share the same mother.

Just as Becket attains stature in his role of spiritual father of England, the spoilt-child quality which is a focal point of Henry's character gains ascendence in the last two acts of the play. His moods become as fitful as a three year old, as he alternately cries for, admires, and hates the Thomas he has lost. This obsession finally turns into a desire for revenge. The result is a further rending of the national fabric as Henry ceases to be a competent firgure-head. Once again family scenes encapsulate what is happening. The first setting, at the beginning of Act Three, reveals Henry's sons playing in one corner of the room while Henry "joue au bilboquet," a childish game, in the other. "Il rate toujours; il finit par jeter le bilboquet. … " He is aimless and bored; he rarely visits the family circle. He asks one son his name and is told "Henri III." It is a salutary reminder that a wounded king's successor is always ready to replace him. The second royal family scene (Act Four) epitomizes the total breakdown in Henry of kingship as function. He, whose central task is to uphold the unity of the realm, says he has decided to have his son crowned by the Archbishop of York as his successor while he is still alive, totally unaware of the danger inherent in this possible act. His overwhelming goal is to humiliate Becket by denying him his exclusive right to consecrate a new king. "Ah! la bonne, l'excellente farce! Ah! la tête de l'Archevêque quand il aura àdigérer ça!" declares Henry to his mother, insisting on his own right: "Je joue aux jeux qui m'amusent, Madame, et de la façon qui m'amuse!" It is significant that in this scene where Henry's incapacity is finally revealed, the Queen Mother puts aside her dislike of her son and tries to set him back on the road of duty. She reminds him, "C'est de l'Angleterre que vous devez vous occuper, pas de votre haine—ou de votre amour déçu—pour cet homme!" She goes on to recall the puissance of Henry's own father and ends her tirade with the cry, "Ah! si j'étais un homme!" But Henry is not that now. The fight with Becket, which in political terms involves complicated patterns of the rival hegemonies of church and state, is for Henry a direct threat to his manhood. "Veule comme une fille. Tant qu'il vivra, je ne pourrai jamais rien," he cries as he sends the Barons out to kill Becket.

In the end, of course, whatever else the rivalry between church and state holds for the future, Becket's own final gift to Henry is a united English family, for Becket's death is the means whereby England achieves "sa victoire finale sur le chaos." His death and the King's subsequent penance join Henry and Becket for the last time. And for the first time the Saxon populace recognizes a link between their dead spiritual father and national hero, and the King. They flock to his side against his own usurping son. One wonders if at that moment Henry remembers Becket's words spoken in the peasant's hut: "L'Angleterre sera faite, mon prince, le jour où les Saxons seront aussi vos fils." It is doubtful, for even as he is apotheosizing Becket as a saint, he is delegating to the Barons who killed him the task of finding his murderer.