Commentary on John Betjeman’s in Westminster Abbey Essay Example

in the Second World War (1939-45) as we can see from:Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.

It is about the attitudes of those who believe themselves to be upstanding members of the Church of England, yet have far from Christian instincts. The “lady” promises God she will: Send white feathers to the cowards and petitions Him to show favouritism to “the whites” fully expecting the approval of the Almighty. The intention of the poet is to ridicule attitudes that he finds disgraceful, in an exuberant and entertaining way, so that we are not taught a worthy sermon but rather enjoy a rather boisterous joke at he expense of the narrator. Geoffrey Chaucer uses the same method. Betjeman would hope that readers, recognising the irony, would then be alert to any such attitudes in themselves and others and see these attitudes more clearly as hypocritical. Narrative Voice The persona Betjeman adopts is a comfortably off, complacent, middle-aged woman who attends services in Westminster Abbey “Whensoever” she has “the time”.

It is most likely that the “lady” is a universal type rather than a real person.The first stanza introduces the character as a fussy woman who puts herself first: Let me take this other glove off The bouncy, trochaic rhythm (unstressed stressed) immediately gives us an indication of her style of speech as rather peremptory. She uses the Imperative voice even in prayer and reassures God that if he ends up bombing innocent German women: We will pardon Thy Mistake. Audience reaction to this ignorantly blasphemous remark would be uproarious, and possibly guilty, laughter, because blasphemy is a guilty pleasure.

Orthodox religion maintains that God makes no mistakes.

Before Betjeman sets the scene, the lady gets herself into the mood for a religious service by adopting an appropriately elevated tone, and lexical field (vocabulary) with a Latin phrase to describe the singing: As the vox humana swells, And the beauteous fields of Eden Bask beneath the Abbey bells. Here, where England's statesmen lie, However, the word “Bask” emphasised by the consonance (Abbey, beauteous, beneath and bells) and our suspicions from the first line, add to our sense f the lady’s complacency. She has come to give God her petitions in the tone of a woman who runs a household and demands instant efficiency from her staff.

She is not in the habit of saying please; she enjoins God to: “Listen to a lady's cry”. Form and Literary Context We hear the monologue of her prayers in seven fairly regular stanzas of six lines each (sexains or sextets – both correct) in trochaic tetrameter. The traditional form is typical of Betjeman’s style and appropriate to this subject as the lady is, on the surface, a conventional figure.However, the rhythm is martial (war-like, marching, bossy) and occasionally jarring, which has a counterpart in her reflections, particularly the last line of each stanza which exposes her true motives and feelings to be consistently self-centred, and provides a regular punch-line.

Meaning, Sub-text and Alternative Interpretations Although it is natural in war for soldiers to pray that they will survive and the corollary of that is, almost inevitably, that their enemies will die, the brutality of the lady’s prayer to a merciful Christian God is shocking and ludicrous.She shows her Christian charity rather illogically but realising the difficulties,

unwittingly adds to the irony: Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans. Spare their women for Thy Sake, And if that is not too easy We will pardon Thy Mistake. Betjeman uses conventional liturgical language in “Gracious Lord, oh”… “Spare”… “for Thy Sake” but instead of the lady asking for pardon, it is God that she graciously offers to pardon! The alliterative s emphasises her supposed charity.Her ludicrously superior attitude is more likely to delight us with its silliness than to offend with its blasphemy.

But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be, Don't let anyone bomb me. This attitude is also natural and universal, even if it is self-centred and, emphasised by the alliterative b and imperative voice, it is comical, but which reader would not make that prayer? Betjeman helps us to laugh at ourselves here. However, the line is metrically short. The missing word might be “please” which would be a half-rhyme with “easy”.

It is a point she naturally comes back to (as we all would if we were under attack) but Betjeman undermines her with her comical, limited demand: Lord, put beneath Thy special care One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square. The name is suggestive of a leafy, prosperous London Square, with associations of cardigans and cads. The lady uses conventional liturgical language of penitence, making sure the Lord gets matters in proportion: Although dear Lord I am a sinner, I have done no major crime; Betjeman highlights her egotism and complacency by using “I” or “me” ten times, as well as “we” and “our”.She bargains, in return for God’s special protection: Now I'll come to Evening Service Whensoever I have the time. The hypermetric line (8

syllables, when 7 would follow the pattern) is hurried over, suggesting that she would try to fit it into her busy schedule and would therefore expect the Lord to “reserve for” her “a crown” or place among the saints in Heaven, but she also asks Him to remember that while she is still in this realm: And do not let my shares go down. The joke, here, is her complete confidence that God is a capitalist, in ontrast with the principal message of Jesus to sell all one’s possessions, give to the poor and follow Him in a life of total selflessness.

While most readers would relish the irony, few Christians live up to this ideal, and many of us would pray for material benefits. We are forced to laugh at ourselves, as well as recognising the implication that this type of lady, in particular, is not prepared to make many personal sacrifices. There is also a humorous conflation of the Kingdom of Heaven with the British Empire in: I will labour for Thy Kingdom, Help our lads to win the warThere is no knowing what sort of labour she proposes in this world, apart from the gross insensitivity of sending “white feathers to the cowards”, an image that could conjure up, perhaps for some, the horrors of shell-shock and post-traumatic stress, though the bouncy rhythm for most readers would keep serious thoughts at bay. Nonetheless, she does offer her domestic services “In the Eternal Safety Zone”, perhaps as an incentive to secure her place in Heaven. One wonders how seriously we are to take her resolve to “Join the Women’s Army Corps”. This lady,

representative of her type, is also shown to be blatantly racist.

She prays for the protection of all “Gallant black” British, Imperial Forces “... in all their fights, And, even more, protect the whites.

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57 Imagery and Setting The Latin phrase: “As the vox humana swells” makes us aware that the congregation is singing an uplifting hymn. Biblical imagery of “the beauteous fields of Eden” and “the Abbey bells”, along with the imagery of the tombs, monuments and plaques: “Where England’s statesmen lie” are pleasurably aesthetic.The imagery of the “the beauteous fields of Eden” is suggestive of a number of hymns and the prelapsarian image of Eden either suggests the temporary innocence of mankind inside the Abbey or an irony that mankind may be far from innocent when basking in an aura of conventional religious piety. Stanza 3 is rich in Imperial imagery conjured up by exotic place names, rarely visited in the 1940s by English ladies. Keep our Empire undismembered Guide our Forces by Thy Hand, Gallant blacks from far Jamaica, Honduras and Togoland;This is more suggestive of an Atlas than any real commonwealth kinship.

Stanza 4 shows the limitations of the good lady’s horizons. She summarises everything that the Lord should consider during the bombing! She implores him to: Think of what our Nation stands for, Great Britain sets an unimpeachable standard in her eyes. She cherishes: Books from Boots and country lanes, Free speech, free passes, class distinction,     Democracy and proper drains. Style and StructureBetjeman

is using a poetic device adopted by Alexander Pope in The Rape of the Lock in which Belinda, a young girl, lists things serious and frivolous ( toiletries, “powders, prayer book and billet-doux” or love letters) as if they were all equally important, because they are to her. The implication is that the Lady would not have much understanding of the larger concepts of free speech and democracy. However, most of us, Betjeman included, would mainly approve of the list itself, while being more judicious about lumping such disparate ideas as democracy and drains together.

The hypermetric line draws attention to “free passes, class distinction”, also emphasised by the rhetorical triple and the repetition of “free”. The lady’s tone and style has changed to that of a political propagandist. The style is ironical throughout and Betjeman brings the imagery of the final stanza back to the Abbey itself which helps to create a satisfying structure: Where the bones of leading statesmen,     Have so often been interr'd. The Lady feels uplifted by her “worship”: Now I feel a little better, What a treat to hear Thy word, hich is very ironical as she did all of the speaking and there is no indication of any listening! Returning to the previous idea that God must realise that she is rather pushed for time, she rounds off her orisons with the couplet: And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait Because I have a luncheon date. 9.

25 Clearly her social engagements have to take precedence, as God will no doubt appreciate. The humour would have been more mordant in wartime austerity when the majority were scraping around

on rations. The rhyme scheme of each sexain is abcbdd, the final couplet punching home the jokes.The sequence of thought in the structure is: stanza 1 – setting, stanza 2 – fist petition: bomb the Germans, not me; stanza 3 – second petition: protect commonwealth fighters and even more the whites; stanza 4 – third petition: consider our glorious Nation and protect 189, Cadogan Square; stanza 5 – conventional penitential phrase and promises to come to Evening Service therefore she can request a place in Heaven and safe shares on the stock market; stanza 6 – makes five offers to the Lord, none of which seem viable, and a presumption that she will be going to Heaven. tanza 7 – uses imagery related to stanza 1, offers a social compliment “what a treat to hear Thy Word” and makes her excuses having done her duty.

Contextual Issues Until the mid-1940s Betjeman, like many writers, would also have been a socialist so the rather spitting sibilance in “Free speech, free passes, class distinction” might indicate his disapproval of class distinction especially as it is juxtaposed with Democracy, which a socialist would see as a contradiction in terms.There is a distinct possibility, from the ironical context, that Betjeman has a poor opinion of the effectiveness of “the Women's Army Corps” (though he wasn’t averse to women in general). Related Works The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer TELEPHONE CONVERSATION uses irony against an individual, real person but the situation can be universalised. Racism from a superior woman.Dulce et Decorum Est (WW1) uses biting irony against Jessie Pope who wrote “Whose for the Game” which inspired Dulce et Decorum

Est and satirised the interpretation of Horace that she and others adopted to encourage innocent young men to go and fight in a war that would lead to wasteful deaths without dignity or honour, because the strategists and managers of logistics were so incompetent.

Hawk Roosting – outrageous, unlikely ego of the Hawk is in many ways similar to this lady’s unselfconscious arrogance in relation to man and God. The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope 11. 00pm