Doubt: A Parable

John Patrick Shanley

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

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Crow

In Scene 7, when Sister James and Father Flynn meet in the garden, the scene is bookended by a crow’s caw. Crows symbolize death, as they are scavengers, said to appear at a home shortly before someone passes, and to linger afterward. In this way, they are thought to guide souls into the afterlife. They also symbolize change: not just the change from life to death, but from one phase of life to another. For Sister James, the crow’s call represents her change from innocent and guileless to morally muddled. It is in this conversation that she confesses narrates her dream, in which her reflection is sheer darkness. Though she comes to profess her trust in Father Flynn in this act, it is clearly a choice to ignore her darker imaginings, which nonetheless will not leave her.

Blindness

Sister Veronica is mentioned in passing in the play as a nun who is going blind. Sister Aloysius wishes to protect her, asking Sister James to help her along if she seems to be struggling. In the Bible, blindness is used to describe people who are unable to receive divine revelation. It is also revealed by Zephaniah in the Bible to be a punishment for the hardhearted, and Jesus famously refers to the Pharisees (self-righteous ancient Jewish leaders) as the “blind guides leading the blind.” Therefore, this image of blindness could be seen as a sort of indictment against Sister Aloysius. She, in guiding blind Sister Veronica, may be blind herself; like the Pharisees, she is a believer in strict adherence to guidelines, and is described as hard-hearted.

The Habit

Sister Aloysius, when speaking about Sister Veronica’s fall, states: “It’s the habit. It catches us up more than not. What with our being in black and white, and so prone to falling, we’re more like dominos than anything else” (26). This image showcases Sister Aloysius’s preoccupation with herself as a symbol. She is getting tripped up by her own sense of duty, by the habit that surrounds her. In trying to encompass the symbol of a nun, she sacrifices her own sense of self, and trips. Also, her actions are indeed like those of a domino; in relentlessly pursuing her suspicions, she pulls in more and more people, making them fall from their own certainty and into her web of skepticism.