48 pages • 1 hour read

Doubt: A Parable

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2005

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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

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Discussion Questions

Scenes 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Scene 3 Summary

Scene 3 is comprised of another short monologue by Father Flynn, who addresses his basketball students. He begins by discussing how they should approach shooting from the foul line. He cautions them that the danger is psychological, and advises them to come up with a small physical routine of shifting weight in order to avoid overthinking. He then speaks about the preponderance of dirty nails among the boys, asking them to keep their hands clean. Father Flynn, he says, had a childhood friend with dirty nails who, after putting his dirty fingers in his mouth, got spinal meningitis and died. “Sometimes it’s the little things that get you,” he says (16).

Scene 4 Summary

Sisters James and Aloysius meet in a garden. As they chat, Sister Aloysius reveals that she was married before becoming a nun, but that her husband died in World War II. Sister James, meanwhile, went straight into the convent. They speak about the distance between the convent and rectory, and Sister Aloysius describes Monsignor Benedict as “oblivious” and “otherworldly in the extreme” (19).

Sister Aloysius asks about the new student, Donald Muller, asking if he’s been hit by fellow students. Sister James says that he has not because “he has a protector” in Father Flynn (19). This news causes Sister Aloysius to become rigid and concerned. Sister James says that Father Flynn has “taken an interest. Since Donald went on the altar boys” (20). Sister Aloysius replies that she had hoped Sister James would never come to her with news such as this.

Sister James says she has no evidence of untoward behavior, but that she has noticed small, questionable things. Sister Aloysius says that they cannot wait for hard evidence, and that “there are parameters which protect [Father Flynn] and hinder [her]” (21). She asks what Sister James has seen, and it is then that Sister James reveals that Father Flynn took Donald to the rectory alone last week, after which Donald came back smelling of alcohol and looking frightened. Sister Aloysius says that she should have known—that instead of anticipating student violence against their first African-American student, she should have anticipated that his isolation would make him prey instead.

Sister Aloysius says that they will have to take action themselves, as Monsignor Benedict is too oblivious to act, and would likely just ask Father Flynn himself, allowing the priest to deny the matter. She plans to meet with Father Flynn under some pretense, and says that Sister James will have to be there as witness.

Scenes 3-4 Analysis

This section begins with Father Flynn addressing the children directly in basketball class. His speech meanders, but in speaking about foul line tactics, he appears to speak suggestively about the experience of doubt. He says that it’s psychological and “you against yourself” (16). In urging his students to come up with a routine for offsetting doubt, he symbolically extolls the virtues of outside structure, of an external rule set like that offered by faith and the church, which expressly gives you direction even when you’re gripped with doubt. As he moves on to talk about dirty nails he says, “sometimes it’s the little things that get you” (16). For him, the “little things” could well be his long nails, love of sugar, and progressive bent. These things turn Sister Aloysius against him, and make her suspicious.

The next scene contains Sister James’s confession of her suspicions to Sister Aloysius. It begins with them in the garden. Their conversation opens with talk about a bush, which had been pruned but not protected from the frost. When Sister James asks if they’ve had a frost yet, Sister Aloysius responds: “When it comes, it’s too late” (17). This same philosophy guides how she proceeds with the suspicions against Father Flynn. She believes that she must act swiftly, for if she waits to go through proper channels or get hard evidence, it will be too late.

In this scene, too, Sister Aloysius confesses that she was formerly married, and showcases her first smile when speaking about her husband. She says: “Life perhaps is longer than you think and the dictates of the soul more numerous” (18). Though she says taking the habit meant shutting the door on all things secular, it’s clear that Sister Aloysius is more guarded and strict due to the loss of her husband.

Here, too, Sister Aloysius mentions the vast metaphorical distance between the convent and rectory—“We might as well be separated by the Atlantic Ocean” (18). She also refers again to Monsignor Benedict’s obliviousness, as evidence that the church’s hierarchy is unfriendly to disruption and out of touch with the crises on the ground.

Here, Sister James begins to confess her feeling of having stepped away from God after voicing her suspicions, and Sister Aloysius utters the defining phrase: “When you take a step to address wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in His service” (20).

Sister Aloysius also remarks that Donald’s isolation as the only African American at the school created his vulnerability. He was, as Shanley says in his preface, “terribly vulnerable to anyone who chose to hunt [him]” (ix).