Doubt: A Parable

John Patrick Shanley

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2005

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Scene Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Scene 2

Scenes 3-4

Scenes 5-6

Scenes 7-9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Scenes 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Scene 5 Summary

This scene describes the meeting between Sister Aloysius, Sister James, and Father Flynn. As it opens, Sister Aloysius speaks of last night’s windstorm, and tell Sister James that Sister Veronica hurt herself tripping over a fallen branch.

When Father Flynn enters, they begin to talk about the Christmas pageant. Father Flynn and Sister James push to perform a secular song. Sister Aloysius at first resists, but relents, as Father Flynn writes an idea for a sermon on intolerance. Father Flynn further states that they should be friendlier, take the boys on camping trips and the like, to show that they are like their congregation. Sister Aloysius disagrees, saying, “the working class members of this parish trust us to be different” (30).

Sister Aloysius shifts the conversation by saying they must be careful how they use Donald Muller in the pageant, to not showcase any special treatment. She then accuses Father Flynn of singling him out in a private meeting in the rectory. Father Flynn begins to realize that the tide of the conversation is turning, and becomes defensive. As Sister Aloysius pushes him to talk about it, saying that Donald behaved differently afterward, Father Flynn at first calls the matter private, saying he objects to the Sister’s tone, and that she should take it up with Monsignor Benedict if she wishes to continue to pursue the matter.

When they reveal that Donald had alcohol on his breath, Father Flynn says that the boy was caught sneaking altar wine, and that he confronted him in order to keep his misbehavior a secret and avoid Donald being dismissed from his duties. Father Flynn states that Mr. McGinn caught Donald in the act, and would be able to corroborate his story. He leaves. Sister James is relieved, but Sister Aloysius accuses her of choosing to believe him “so that [she] can have simplicity back” (35). Sister James, rather, says that Sister Aloysius doesn’t believe him because she doesn’t like him and his forward thinking. Sister Aloysius insists that her experience informs her distrust, and the scene concludes with her calling Donald Muller’s parents to request a meeting.

Scene 6 Summary

This scene is another short parable excerpted from Father Flynn’s sermon. He describes a woman who gossiped with a friend, and then had a dream that a great hand pointed down at her, and she was seized with guilt. She goes to confession and asks if gossiping is a sin, to which the father responds adamantly that it is, and that she should be “heartily ashamed” (37). The Father tells her to go home, take a pillow to her roof, and cut it open with a knife. She does, and he asks what happened. She responds that feathers went flying everywhere, and he asks her to go gather up “every last feather that flew out on the wind” (37). Of course, she says that this is impossible, and that she can’t know where they went. The Father retorts that that is gossip.

Scenes 5-6 Analysis

Scene 5 is a microcosm of the entire play. It begins with surface chat of the Christmas pageant, and like in the first scene with Sister James, Sister Aloysius is characterized as almost comically strict: against lipstick, secular songs, and ballpoint pens. Father Flynn, meanwhile, imagines more parables resembling those in his sermons (imagining an ancient man alone on a windy night), and dreams of convivial camping trips with the boys (recalling his basketball lecture). However, the teachers soon segue into talk of Donald Muller, and the play becomes combat. Where between the nuns it was whispers and distrust, Father Flynn is directly combative and clear in stating his innocence.

When cornered, he reveals his story about Donald Muller drinking the altar wine alone, and Sister James is relieved. She has said that she is dying to recover her peace of mind, and believing him is simple. As Sister Aloysius says, “You just want things resolved so you can have your simplicity back” (35). As this scene ends, it displays the tension between progressive and conservative beliefs, and how it sways Sister James. She accuses Sister Aloysius of distrusting Father Flynn solely based on his progressive sensibilities and peculiar tastes. And she feels that in siding with Father Flynn, she’s absolving herself too; allowing herself to enjoy the peformative aspects of teaching, and not requiring herself to be frosty and suspicious of her students.

In Scene 6, Father Flynn once again preaches a parable, this time targeted precisely at Sister Aloysius. Key to this story of gossip and ripped pillows is the power dynamic between the male Church clergyman and female congregant. She is portrayed as sheer ignorance, malicious without thought, while the male member of the Church is clearly her intellectual and moral superior—suggesting that Father Flynn sees his relation to Sister Aloysius in the same way.