8.2 Business and moral leaders  (Page 12/13)

Bolt's characterization of More follows closely the model of authenticity set forth by the existentialists, especially Camus, as he states in the Preface to his play. Here the human defines himself or herself through commitments undertaken. These projects are incorporated into the self-system to form the core of one's personality. Then integrity becomes the core value for the hero of selfhood. Integrity is spelled out in terms of how one is able to resist external forces, challenges, and temptations to act against one's core beliefs and to break up the coherence of these self-defining beliefs. More's challenge came in the form of an oath which required that he swear against his core beliefs and that he offer his own self as the guarantee of the truth of this oath. Bolt goes to great lengths not to portray More as a religious fanatic. More is portrayed as open, inquiring, questioning, and flexible in all areas except that core in terms of which he has defined his own self. To go against this core would be to lose his very identity.

Thomas Cromwell is More's opponent in both Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons and in Hilary Mantel's recent novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Out the Bodies . But here is where the resemblance ends. In Bolt's play, Cromwell is immoral and Machiavellian. He takes his ends as already given; he accepts them as actionable and even moral without examination and without question. Cromwell, in Bolt's play, restricts himself to figuring out the most effective and direct means to the ends handed down to him by his king (Henry VIII). Cromwell does not worry that his private conscience may be contrary to his public duties. But More does, at least in Bolt's account. In response to another "administrator," Cardinal Wolsey, More says the following: " Well...I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties...they lead their country by a short route to chaos" (MFAS 13). One can get lost in the meandering of means and policies if one does not remain fixed and focused on moral ends.

Mantel's recent novels reverse the relations between More and Cromwell. She writes explicitly and sympathetically from Cromwell's viewpoint adopting a style carefully crafted to transport the reader directly into Cromwell's perspective; the reader literally sees things through Cromwell's eyes. Cromwell is portrayed as a humanist who is plagued by the problem of "dirty hands." This is the supposedly realistic perception that in order to do good one must, in the complicated and imperfect world, do harm. The Machiavellian calculation may be necessary if those intending good are to do good in this imperfect world. Cromwell is aid and advisor to Henry VIII who is, in many ways, a tyrant. Cromwell works to do Henry's will but also to blunt the force of its harmful consequences on others, especially the "common human." (This is the ordinary human who, up to this point, has been left out of the scope of moral consideration.) So Mantel portrays Cromwell as good but also as human and less than perfect; he does his best in a difficult and imperfect world.