Thomas_More,_an_Adamantine_Sense_of_Self

An Adamantine sense of self Sir Thomas More, the protagonist of A Man for All Seasons, is an intellectual man who adores life, the love for his family, and respects his king. He has a deeply embedded sense of integrity, truth and honour that causes him to choose death over compromising his soul. Cardinal Wolsey, concerned for matters of the state, found More's principles as a "horrible moral squint" that prevent More from collaborating with the governing powers of England. Sir Thomas More's conclusion to decline the king did not come easily. More had supported his king in both state and religious policy until the Act of Supremacy and the oath Henry VIII required his fellow citizen to take. Bolt also reveals the pain More's decision causes his family. More and his cherished family is forced into poverty after resigning the position of Lord Chancellor of England and continuing to defy his king puts them into disgrace but none of this deters More in upholding his virtue and principles. More stands for the perils of being perceived as a saint or a moral man. Throughout the play characters, such as Chapuys, Roper, Cromwell and even the king, saw More as a archetypal of a concept “Saint” rather than as a person. His approval is important to the king and to Norfolk because it would make them feel as if his approval improved their own morals. More is a man of deep religious convictions who counters Wolsey's concerns for the state by insisting that he had rather govern the country by prayers. Ironically, he trusts the law to protect him on earth, which would forsake him to death, and he considers it his God-given duty to become expert enough in legal intricacies to defend himself from the King. More says that God made Man capable of serving him "wittily, in the tangle of his mind!" Ultimately, More believed a man's duty was to sort out the conflicts between religion and state according to his own conscience, saying "In matters of conscience, the loyal subject is more bounden to be loyal to his conscience than to any other thing." As a hero, More looks inwardly for his motivations and does not rely on any external ideals to guide his speech and actions. More’s morals are continually shifting and he surprises Chapuys and other characters with his sharp wit and unexpected logicality. If an ideal agrees with his conscience, More will do his best to live up to it. According to Bolt, the letter of the law held an important place in More’s conscience, albeit below that held by the Church of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Bolt clarifies that he uses More’s reverence for heaven as a metaphor for humankind’s awe for the “frightening universe,” which is either void of any ethics or occupied by warring forces of “God versus the devil”. Unable to know the nature of the cosmos More put his faith in society’s system of judgment. The great beyond, symbolized in the play by the sea and water, remains unknown to humankind. Earthly society and laws, symbolized by dry land, offer the only shelter from the uncertainties of the universe. In his attempt to present the man with "an adamantine sense of self" Bolt carefully integrated many of More's own words, taking material from William Roper's biography of his father-in-law, from the writings of More's contemporaries, and from More's own writings. I quote Christopher Simon, a law professor at the University of George, USA: "Thomas More, as I wrote about him, became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of himself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved. It was a substantial area in both cases. ... Since he was a clever man and a great lawyer he was able to retire from those areas in wonderfully good order, but at length he was asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And there this supple, humorous, unassuming and sophisticated person set like metal, was overtaken by an absolutely primitive rigor, and could no more be budged than a cliff."