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Review: John Patrick Shanley - Doubt: A Parable (2004)
I’d watched the movie that was based on this play before and I enjoyed it. As a play, it was a short read but it was action packed and I really enjoyed it.
Spoilers.
Story
This was a short play about Sister Aloysius, the principal of a school, convinced that Father Flynn, a teacher, had an inappropriate relationship with a student. Sister James, a little naïve, was caught in the middle. She answered to Sister Aloysius, but she wanted to believe Father Flynn as he was so likeable. On the other hand, Sister Aloysius was very harsh and stern, definitely unpopular.
In conversation with the child’s mother, the mother felt that if Father Flynn was the only man who paid attention to her son, she was willing to bear it. It would only be up until June, when the student was to graduate to high school. This frustrated Sister Aloysius.
In a conversation with Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius accused him of having a history of inappropriate relations with children. Father Flynn completely denied Sister Aloysius’ claims, and said he would call the bishop. In the final conversation between Sister Aloysius and Sister James, it was revealed that Father Flynn was promoted to pastor at another church. Sister Aloysius admitted to Sister James that she was bluffing about Father Flynn’s past crimes, but the fact that it riled him meant that there was some truth to them. But she also admitted that she had doubts, that maybe she had falsely accused Father Flynn.
This was a very compact story about belief, trust, faith. Who is the most devout of the three? No one can say. They all approach religion different. How do you use religion to do good? What even is good? When is it okay to bend? These are all questions that we saw our characters have to tackle. I’ll discuss them below.
Writing
I really appreciated this play because of how much it could pack into a story. What I especially love about plays is that that are 99% dialogue. I have read stories where the dialogue is unrealistic and unnatural, but plays require characters to speak naturally because there is so much focus on them. And I appreciate that Shanley was able to fit so much with so few characters.
I also appreciated how Shanley wrote the characters to constantly be dancing around the topic. None of them ever really said the words ‘child sexual abuse,’ they all talked about inappropriate relationships, or something like that. It’s likely another reason that child sexual abuse could go on for so long in the church; people were unwilling to speak up and address such an ugly thing.
Characters
Sister Aloysius
Sister Aloysius was the principal of the school. She was extremely stern and harsh. She was the kind who believed that all happy things were intrinsically bad. We saw this in one of the first conversations with the three main characters, in which she disproved of secular carols. She especially disliked Frosty the Snowman because it promoted witchcraft. She would definitely be the kind of woman to disprove of Harry Potter.
And yet Sister Aloysius was imperfect. The biggest example was the fact that she doubted her suspicions of Father Flynn. She knew she had nothing but suspicions, but she was so sure because if there was such a man like Father Flynn, she knew there had to be something sinister behind the curtain. And yet deep down inside, she knew that she was going off of nothing but a hunch. I believe it’s that Sister Aloysius wants to believe in something so much that she makes it so. That’s why she’s such a stickler for the rules; she’d be lost without them. We also saw Sister Aloysius’ vices in other small ways. While she did disprove of Father Flynn wanting three sugars in his beverage, we later saw Sister Aloysius listening to a radio that she had confiscated from a student. She used it to listen to the news, a habit she’d picked up in the war, when she was married. And now that her husband was dead, she found some comfort in listening to the news anyway.
As I briefly mentioned, I think Sister Aloysius wants to believe in authority, but she also understands that there are innate weaknesses in it, the main one being the corruption between the male members of the clergy. She innately distrusts priests when they are too amiable, too chummy. And that was why when she wanted to get dirt on Father Flynn, she said she’d talked to a nun (though that was later a lie). So while Sister Aloysius was devout, she didn’t completely bow to authority, the way nuns were to bow to male authority. She had her own crusade, which is a little interesting for a woman who is so devout.
Sister Aloysius’ conversation with Mrs. Muller was interesting too because it showed that Sister Aloysius was idealistic compared to Mrs. Muller. I feel that most people who join the clergy are a little idealistic, as they want to believe that everything has an order. Sister Aloysius believed that Mrs. Muller would be on her side in wanting to protect her boy from Father Flynn’s advances. However, she was shocked to find that Mrs. Muller thought little of it, and that Father Flynn was the lesser of evils, compared to Donald being beaten at home, possibly due to homosexual inclinations.
Shanley had begun the play explaining that sometimes people may be so tired of defending something. And perhaps that is why Sister Aloysius campaigns this crusade against priests. It’s the only way she can challenge the hierarchy of the church. And in turn she grew so tired of this crusade and admitted as such to Sister James at the end.
Father Flynn
Father Flynn was a priest at the school who taught gym class. He was very authoritative, very likable. He would give sermons throughout the play that were relevant to the plot, sermons on tolerance, sermons on gossip, etc. But Father Flynn was also that ‘cool teacher’ archetype that you couldn’t help but feel was sometimes a bit too close to the students. That was how Sister Aloysius felt about him. He would joke around with the male students in gym class.
The events of the play were incited because Father Flynn had spoken to a student one-on-one, and Sister James attested that the student had returned to class with alcohol on his breath. Father Flynn’s version of events was that the student, Donald Muller, had drank altar wine, which was against the rules. But knowing that Donald was often bullied for being black, Father Flynn said he would keep the secret as long as no one else found out. Sister Aloysius believed that Father Flynn had given Donald wine instead, maybe to become friendly to him, or maybe so that he’d be more suggestible. Father Flynn denied this, and insisted he was the only one looking out for Donald.
Sister James told Father Flynn that she believed him, which is probably what most people would believe, as Father Flynn was so well-liked. As Sister Aloysius’ suspicions grew, Father Flynn’s sermons also grew to combat Sister Aloysius’ suspicions.
In a final confrontation, Sister Aloysius threatened Father Flynn, telling him that she’d spoken to a nun about his past crimes. Father Flynn had been at three parishes in the last five years, which was quite a lot. Father Flynn insisted that Sister Aloysius should have spoken to the pastor instead, and Sister Aloysius believed that Father Flynn insisted so because he was cozy with all of the male authority. Father Flynn left the conversation irate, and he said he would call the bishop. In the end, he was moved to another church, and he received a promotion to pastor.
Father Flynn is a mystery. He does fit the archetype of that kind of teacher who is very likable but maybe dangerously so if he is too close to the students. I feel that a healthy teacher-student relationship is less of friends and more of respectful mentor and mentee. We don’t know if this was what went on with Father Flynn. I think Father Flynn believed that being a friend to the students was important, especially since Donald Muller was the target of racist bullying. But that also made Donald vulnerable to Father Flynn’s advances.
If Father Flynn was innocent, I would understand his anger. After all, Sister Aloysius had nothing on him other than a suspicion. And I would understand his want to move to another parish. But what about speaking with the nuns? Why was his relationship with nuns poor? That’s not a crime though, is it?
Sister Aloysius built up the narrative that Father Flynn was guilty. He’d had a history of abusing children and that was why he’d been cycled through so many parishes in the past years. He’d given wine to Donald and he’d isolated him so that he could abuse him. And now that he was found out, he would be switching again.
We can’t pretend that child abuse in the church is not common. There was a whole news story done on this, about priests being cycled throughout parishes to hide their crimes. Sister Aloysius was doing her part in trying to protect the children. But was this the right way to go about it? What other way did she have? It’s all a mystery and we will get no closure. Sister Aloysius did away with the possibility that Father Flynn could be abusing children.
Sister James
Sister James was a peppy young teacher. She loved teaching, she loved history. Sister Aloysius disproved of her new age approach to teaching and told her that she needed to be sterner with the students. So Sister James naturally vibed better with Father Flynn. They both agreed on introducing fun things to spruce up the Christmas pageant, and she naturally respected Father Flynn.
Sister James didn’t want to believe the claims against Father Flynn. However, it was her observations that started the suspicions. She said that when Donald came back from meeting with Father Flynn, he was acting weirdly and he had alcohol on his breath. We eventually did get to the conclusion that he did drink alcohol. Either he’d drank it himself, or Father Flynn had given it to him. But the weird look is something that cannot be proven.
Sister James was stuck between two authorities. She told Father Flynn that she trusted him, and she naturally had a better relationship with him. In fact, she admitted that she didn’t agree with Sister Aloysius’ way of treating the students. But I think she also knew that there was a chance that Father Flynn wasn’t completely innocent. Maybe it was because she answered to Sister Aloysius and naturally succumbed to her views as her superior. But also, as a woman of the clergy, I feel that she’s a little removed from the male dominated authority structure and hence also had a better view of the possible child abuse, and knew that it was a possibility.
Ultimately, it was all out of Sister James’ hands. Whether or not she believed in Father Flynn, he was out of the picture. But she was the only person Sister Aloysius could confide in.
Mrs. Muller
Mrs. Muller was Donald’s mother. Donald was the student that Sister Aloysius suspected was being abused by Father Flynn. Mrs. Muller herself had a positive opinion of Father Flynn because he was nice to her son. When Sister Aloysius called on her, she assumed that there was a problem, which there was, but Mrs. Muller felt that whatever the problem, it only had to be until June and Donald would be out of her hair. He’d probably be off to a better high school if he was able to graduate from this school.
When Mrs. Muller was alerted to the possibility of being sexually assaulted, she didn’t think much of it. She revealed that Donald was being beaten at home, so she was thankful for at least one man who was ‘nice’ to him, and if sexual abuse was the exchange, then she’d be willing to make it. She at first said that Donald was beaten by his father for drinking the wine, but she later mentioned that it was because of Donald’s homosexual tendencies.
Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Muller asked Sister Aloysius why if there was a problem, that it was Donald’s fault and not Father Flynn’s. Sister Aloysius said that she agreed with Mrs. Muller that it was Father Flynn’s fault. But later Sister Aloysius said that she was hoping that Mrs. Muller would give her some additional information, which she didn’t, particularly because she was fine with Father Flynn’s relationship with her son. She also felt it was just a possibility and not certain.
Given that the Mullers are a black family, we can assume they’re having a tough time in the community. We know Donald was having a tough time in the school too as the only black student. But as is the case with many struggling families, they have to prioritize and I felt that Donald being sexually abused was probably low on their list. The Mullers were probably struggling with other things like money. But if this was the price for Donald to fit in with the community, I think Mrs. Muller was willing to pay it. And she kept mentioning that Donald would only be in the school until June. It would be less than a year, if they were only in December (preparing for the Christmas pageant).
I don’t want to blame Mrs. Muller, but I think struggling families in general would have contributed to more children being vulnerable to abuse from teachers at school.
Themes
Belief
As mentioned, Shanley had written a short piece about what one does when they’re defending something to the point of being tired. I mentioned that I felt Sister Aloysius’ crusade against child molesters in her school was her one act of rebellion against the patriarchal clergy. But she also grew tired of the crusade, though she was technically successful. She broke down at the end of the play and admitted her doubts to Sister James.
Shanley also mentioned how the clergy was an odd place, where people were simultaneously adults and children, shepherds and sheep. And that was because everyone in the clergy answered to God. Despite being adults, they placed their lives in the hands of God. For non-denominational folks, they see people as being responsible for themselves. Only children, the elderly, or the infirm should rely on adults. But it’s different in the church. People are seen as God’s sheep, and we are all meant to see God as our father. But as a result, there’s a sense of responsibility that are taken out of their hands. People feel free to sin if they can get away with it because God must have allowed it if they were able to do it. Was Sister Aloysius correct for trying to undermine this hierarchy that was set by God?
Sister Aloysius admitted to lying to threaten Father Flynn. She said that one must stray further from God in order to grow closer to him. She lied, which is a sin, but so that she would cleanse the evil of Father Flynn from hurting more children. In the same way, Sister Aloysius challenged the church authority in hopes that she could protect the students. She was also incredibly strict with them, which some may seem as inhumane, but we saw that she did try to care for the children in her own way, trying to toughen them up to the world. Is she less loving than Father Flynn? Father Flynn who is friendly but could possibly be sexually abusing them?
Father Flynn had challenged Sister Aloysius, asking her if people were just a set of principles and not humans, flesh and blood. Sister Aloysius is the kind of person who tries to embody rules without considering the humane aspect of it. But does allowing the humane aspect of it muddy the waters? Allow for abuse? We can’t say whether Sister Aloysius or Father Flynn are right, because they are both flawed people.
Workplace politics
Workplace politics in the context of the clergy was interesting. I didn’t quite understand the hierarchy because Sister Aloysius was the principal, and yet Father Flynn didn’t exactly answer to her. I think it was that in the context of the school, Sister Aloysius was the top of the hierarchy, but in the context of the church, Father Flynn as a priest would hold superiority over her as a nun. Either way, Sister James reported to her, but her relationship with Father Flynn was muddy.
In the first discussion between the three of them where they had met in Sister Aloysius’ office, Sister Aloysius had stood up and Father Flynn took her seat, showing that he was the superior of the three of them. But in their later conversations, Sister Aloysius retained her position at her desk, possibly trying to assert her own will. That being said, she did leave the office after the argument with Father Flynn because he would not, and I think it again represented her straying from God and the church.
As for Sister James, she’s like many of us peons in which she is allowed to have an opinion, but it barely matters. She reports to her superior, end of story.
Gender roles
Much of the top authority in the church is male. There was a monsignor who seemed to be the head of the church that the school was attached to. Sister Aloysius refrained from reporting her findings to him. She knew that Father Flynn was chummy with him and would protect him. She instead confided in nuns, both Sister James and the nonexistent nun that she claimed to have phoned. In the same vein, Father Flynn seemed distrusting of nuns compared to pastors. So it felt like the men and women of the cloth stayed in their own lanes.
Earlier in the play, Sister James and Sister Aloysius discussed whether they’d give a talk to the female students about being a woman. However, both sisters agreed that they didn’t feel qualified. Sister James had become a nun as a young adult and didn’t have much romantic or sexual experience. And Sister Aloysius was widowed, but she probably also felt she was too cold to give good advice. On the other hand, Father Flynn would give talks to his students about becoming a man. Why was he qualified but the sisters not? Of course, it was a confidence thing, as Father Flynn was always very confident. But it may also hint to the fact that the sisters were practising celibacy while Father Flynn was not. Why else would he know about sexual and romantic relationships? But again, I am just suspecting, right? I have no evidence.
Class and race
Donald as the only black student at the school was subject to bullying. And as a result of being one of the few black people in the community, I imagine his family struggled more than others as well. All of that made Donald vulnerable to abuse. He sought a protector, and that came in the form of Father Flynn who protected him from the other students. As for Mrs. Muller, she turned a blind eye because having Father Flynn protect Donald was better than being bullied by the other students. This was the reality of disadvantaged families and children.
Overall
Really good play, really excellent read. Highly recommend it. I’m also the kind of person who enjoys reading about religion and the church, so I was probably the perfect target audience for this read.
Spoilers.
Story
This was a short play about Sister Aloysius, the principal of a school, convinced that Father Flynn, a teacher, had an inappropriate relationship with a student. Sister James, a little naïve, was caught in the middle. She answered to Sister Aloysius, but she wanted to believe Father Flynn as he was so likeable. On the other hand, Sister Aloysius was very harsh and stern, definitely unpopular.
In conversation with the child’s mother, the mother felt that if Father Flynn was the only man who paid attention to her son, she was willing to bear it. It would only be up until June, when the student was to graduate to high school. This frustrated Sister Aloysius.
In a conversation with Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius accused him of having a history of inappropriate relations with children. Father Flynn completely denied Sister Aloysius’ claims, and said he would call the bishop. In the final conversation between Sister Aloysius and Sister James, it was revealed that Father Flynn was promoted to pastor at another church. Sister Aloysius admitted to Sister James that she was bluffing about Father Flynn’s past crimes, but the fact that it riled him meant that there was some truth to them. But she also admitted that she had doubts, that maybe she had falsely accused Father Flynn.
This was a very compact story about belief, trust, faith. Who is the most devout of the three? No one can say. They all approach religion different. How do you use religion to do good? What even is good? When is it okay to bend? These are all questions that we saw our characters have to tackle. I’ll discuss them below.
Writing
I really appreciated this play because of how much it could pack into a story. What I especially love about plays is that that are 99% dialogue. I have read stories where the dialogue is unrealistic and unnatural, but plays require characters to speak naturally because there is so much focus on them. And I appreciate that Shanley was able to fit so much with so few characters.
I also appreciated how Shanley wrote the characters to constantly be dancing around the topic. None of them ever really said the words ‘child sexual abuse,’ they all talked about inappropriate relationships, or something like that. It’s likely another reason that child sexual abuse could go on for so long in the church; people were unwilling to speak up and address such an ugly thing.
Characters
Sister Aloysius
Sister Aloysius was the principal of the school. She was extremely stern and harsh. She was the kind who believed that all happy things were intrinsically bad. We saw this in one of the first conversations with the three main characters, in which she disproved of secular carols. She especially disliked Frosty the Snowman because it promoted witchcraft. She would definitely be the kind of woman to disprove of Harry Potter.
And yet Sister Aloysius was imperfect. The biggest example was the fact that she doubted her suspicions of Father Flynn. She knew she had nothing but suspicions, but she was so sure because if there was such a man like Father Flynn, she knew there had to be something sinister behind the curtain. And yet deep down inside, she knew that she was going off of nothing but a hunch. I believe it’s that Sister Aloysius wants to believe in something so much that she makes it so. That’s why she’s such a stickler for the rules; she’d be lost without them. We also saw Sister Aloysius’ vices in other small ways. While she did disprove of Father Flynn wanting three sugars in his beverage, we later saw Sister Aloysius listening to a radio that she had confiscated from a student. She used it to listen to the news, a habit she’d picked up in the war, when she was married. And now that her husband was dead, she found some comfort in listening to the news anyway.
As I briefly mentioned, I think Sister Aloysius wants to believe in authority, but she also understands that there are innate weaknesses in it, the main one being the corruption between the male members of the clergy. She innately distrusts priests when they are too amiable, too chummy. And that was why when she wanted to get dirt on Father Flynn, she said she’d talked to a nun (though that was later a lie). So while Sister Aloysius was devout, she didn’t completely bow to authority, the way nuns were to bow to male authority. She had her own crusade, which is a little interesting for a woman who is so devout.
Sister Aloysius’ conversation with Mrs. Muller was interesting too because it showed that Sister Aloysius was idealistic compared to Mrs. Muller. I feel that most people who join the clergy are a little idealistic, as they want to believe that everything has an order. Sister Aloysius believed that Mrs. Muller would be on her side in wanting to protect her boy from Father Flynn’s advances. However, she was shocked to find that Mrs. Muller thought little of it, and that Father Flynn was the lesser of evils, compared to Donald being beaten at home, possibly due to homosexual inclinations.
Shanley had begun the play explaining that sometimes people may be so tired of defending something. And perhaps that is why Sister Aloysius campaigns this crusade against priests. It’s the only way she can challenge the hierarchy of the church. And in turn she grew so tired of this crusade and admitted as such to Sister James at the end.
Father Flynn
Father Flynn was a priest at the school who taught gym class. He was very authoritative, very likable. He would give sermons throughout the play that were relevant to the plot, sermons on tolerance, sermons on gossip, etc. But Father Flynn was also that ‘cool teacher’ archetype that you couldn’t help but feel was sometimes a bit too close to the students. That was how Sister Aloysius felt about him. He would joke around with the male students in gym class.
The events of the play were incited because Father Flynn had spoken to a student one-on-one, and Sister James attested that the student had returned to class with alcohol on his breath. Father Flynn’s version of events was that the student, Donald Muller, had drank altar wine, which was against the rules. But knowing that Donald was often bullied for being black, Father Flynn said he would keep the secret as long as no one else found out. Sister Aloysius believed that Father Flynn had given Donald wine instead, maybe to become friendly to him, or maybe so that he’d be more suggestible. Father Flynn denied this, and insisted he was the only one looking out for Donald.
Sister James told Father Flynn that she believed him, which is probably what most people would believe, as Father Flynn was so well-liked. As Sister Aloysius’ suspicions grew, Father Flynn’s sermons also grew to combat Sister Aloysius’ suspicions.
In a final confrontation, Sister Aloysius threatened Father Flynn, telling him that she’d spoken to a nun about his past crimes. Father Flynn had been at three parishes in the last five years, which was quite a lot. Father Flynn insisted that Sister Aloysius should have spoken to the pastor instead, and Sister Aloysius believed that Father Flynn insisted so because he was cozy with all of the male authority. Father Flynn left the conversation irate, and he said he would call the bishop. In the end, he was moved to another church, and he received a promotion to pastor.
Father Flynn is a mystery. He does fit the archetype of that kind of teacher who is very likable but maybe dangerously so if he is too close to the students. I feel that a healthy teacher-student relationship is less of friends and more of respectful mentor and mentee. We don’t know if this was what went on with Father Flynn. I think Father Flynn believed that being a friend to the students was important, especially since Donald Muller was the target of racist bullying. But that also made Donald vulnerable to Father Flynn’s advances.
If Father Flynn was innocent, I would understand his anger. After all, Sister Aloysius had nothing on him other than a suspicion. And I would understand his want to move to another parish. But what about speaking with the nuns? Why was his relationship with nuns poor? That’s not a crime though, is it?
Sister Aloysius built up the narrative that Father Flynn was guilty. He’d had a history of abusing children and that was why he’d been cycled through so many parishes in the past years. He’d given wine to Donald and he’d isolated him so that he could abuse him. And now that he was found out, he would be switching again.
We can’t pretend that child abuse in the church is not common. There was a whole news story done on this, about priests being cycled throughout parishes to hide their crimes. Sister Aloysius was doing her part in trying to protect the children. But was this the right way to go about it? What other way did she have? It’s all a mystery and we will get no closure. Sister Aloysius did away with the possibility that Father Flynn could be abusing children.
Sister James
Sister James was a peppy young teacher. She loved teaching, she loved history. Sister Aloysius disproved of her new age approach to teaching and told her that she needed to be sterner with the students. So Sister James naturally vibed better with Father Flynn. They both agreed on introducing fun things to spruce up the Christmas pageant, and she naturally respected Father Flynn.
Sister James didn’t want to believe the claims against Father Flynn. However, it was her observations that started the suspicions. She said that when Donald came back from meeting with Father Flynn, he was acting weirdly and he had alcohol on his breath. We eventually did get to the conclusion that he did drink alcohol. Either he’d drank it himself, or Father Flynn had given it to him. But the weird look is something that cannot be proven.
Sister James was stuck between two authorities. She told Father Flynn that she trusted him, and she naturally had a better relationship with him. In fact, she admitted that she didn’t agree with Sister Aloysius’ way of treating the students. But I think she also knew that there was a chance that Father Flynn wasn’t completely innocent. Maybe it was because she answered to Sister Aloysius and naturally succumbed to her views as her superior. But also, as a woman of the clergy, I feel that she’s a little removed from the male dominated authority structure and hence also had a better view of the possible child abuse, and knew that it was a possibility.
Ultimately, it was all out of Sister James’ hands. Whether or not she believed in Father Flynn, he was out of the picture. But she was the only person Sister Aloysius could confide in.
Mrs. Muller
Mrs. Muller was Donald’s mother. Donald was the student that Sister Aloysius suspected was being abused by Father Flynn. Mrs. Muller herself had a positive opinion of Father Flynn because he was nice to her son. When Sister Aloysius called on her, she assumed that there was a problem, which there was, but Mrs. Muller felt that whatever the problem, it only had to be until June and Donald would be out of her hair. He’d probably be off to a better high school if he was able to graduate from this school.
When Mrs. Muller was alerted to the possibility of being sexually assaulted, she didn’t think much of it. She revealed that Donald was being beaten at home, so she was thankful for at least one man who was ‘nice’ to him, and if sexual abuse was the exchange, then she’d be willing to make it. She at first said that Donald was beaten by his father for drinking the wine, but she later mentioned that it was because of Donald’s homosexual tendencies.
Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Muller asked Sister Aloysius why if there was a problem, that it was Donald’s fault and not Father Flynn’s. Sister Aloysius said that she agreed with Mrs. Muller that it was Father Flynn’s fault. But later Sister Aloysius said that she was hoping that Mrs. Muller would give her some additional information, which she didn’t, particularly because she was fine with Father Flynn’s relationship with her son. She also felt it was just a possibility and not certain.
Given that the Mullers are a black family, we can assume they’re having a tough time in the community. We know Donald was having a tough time in the school too as the only black student. But as is the case with many struggling families, they have to prioritize and I felt that Donald being sexually abused was probably low on their list. The Mullers were probably struggling with other things like money. But if this was the price for Donald to fit in with the community, I think Mrs. Muller was willing to pay it. And she kept mentioning that Donald would only be in the school until June. It would be less than a year, if they were only in December (preparing for the Christmas pageant).
I don’t want to blame Mrs. Muller, but I think struggling families in general would have contributed to more children being vulnerable to abuse from teachers at school.
Themes
Belief
As mentioned, Shanley had written a short piece about what one does when they’re defending something to the point of being tired. I mentioned that I felt Sister Aloysius’ crusade against child molesters in her school was her one act of rebellion against the patriarchal clergy. But she also grew tired of the crusade, though she was technically successful. She broke down at the end of the play and admitted her doubts to Sister James.
Shanley also mentioned how the clergy was an odd place, where people were simultaneously adults and children, shepherds and sheep. And that was because everyone in the clergy answered to God. Despite being adults, they placed their lives in the hands of God. For non-denominational folks, they see people as being responsible for themselves. Only children, the elderly, or the infirm should rely on adults. But it’s different in the church. People are seen as God’s sheep, and we are all meant to see God as our father. But as a result, there’s a sense of responsibility that are taken out of their hands. People feel free to sin if they can get away with it because God must have allowed it if they were able to do it. Was Sister Aloysius correct for trying to undermine this hierarchy that was set by God?
Sister Aloysius admitted to lying to threaten Father Flynn. She said that one must stray further from God in order to grow closer to him. She lied, which is a sin, but so that she would cleanse the evil of Father Flynn from hurting more children. In the same way, Sister Aloysius challenged the church authority in hopes that she could protect the students. She was also incredibly strict with them, which some may seem as inhumane, but we saw that she did try to care for the children in her own way, trying to toughen them up to the world. Is she less loving than Father Flynn? Father Flynn who is friendly but could possibly be sexually abusing them?
Father Flynn had challenged Sister Aloysius, asking her if people were just a set of principles and not humans, flesh and blood. Sister Aloysius is the kind of person who tries to embody rules without considering the humane aspect of it. But does allowing the humane aspect of it muddy the waters? Allow for abuse? We can’t say whether Sister Aloysius or Father Flynn are right, because they are both flawed people.
Workplace politics
Workplace politics in the context of the clergy was interesting. I didn’t quite understand the hierarchy because Sister Aloysius was the principal, and yet Father Flynn didn’t exactly answer to her. I think it was that in the context of the school, Sister Aloysius was the top of the hierarchy, but in the context of the church, Father Flynn as a priest would hold superiority over her as a nun. Either way, Sister James reported to her, but her relationship with Father Flynn was muddy.
In the first discussion between the three of them where they had met in Sister Aloysius’ office, Sister Aloysius had stood up and Father Flynn took her seat, showing that he was the superior of the three of them. But in their later conversations, Sister Aloysius retained her position at her desk, possibly trying to assert her own will. That being said, she did leave the office after the argument with Father Flynn because he would not, and I think it again represented her straying from God and the church.
As for Sister James, she’s like many of us peons in which she is allowed to have an opinion, but it barely matters. She reports to her superior, end of story.
Gender roles
Much of the top authority in the church is male. There was a monsignor who seemed to be the head of the church that the school was attached to. Sister Aloysius refrained from reporting her findings to him. She knew that Father Flynn was chummy with him and would protect him. She instead confided in nuns, both Sister James and the nonexistent nun that she claimed to have phoned. In the same vein, Father Flynn seemed distrusting of nuns compared to pastors. So it felt like the men and women of the cloth stayed in their own lanes.
Earlier in the play, Sister James and Sister Aloysius discussed whether they’d give a talk to the female students about being a woman. However, both sisters agreed that they didn’t feel qualified. Sister James had become a nun as a young adult and didn’t have much romantic or sexual experience. And Sister Aloysius was widowed, but she probably also felt she was too cold to give good advice. On the other hand, Father Flynn would give talks to his students about becoming a man. Why was he qualified but the sisters not? Of course, it was a confidence thing, as Father Flynn was always very confident. But it may also hint to the fact that the sisters were practising celibacy while Father Flynn was not. Why else would he know about sexual and romantic relationships? But again, I am just suspecting, right? I have no evidence.
Class and race
Donald as the only black student at the school was subject to bullying. And as a result of being one of the few black people in the community, I imagine his family struggled more than others as well. All of that made Donald vulnerable to abuse. He sought a protector, and that came in the form of Father Flynn who protected him from the other students. As for Mrs. Muller, she turned a blind eye because having Father Flynn protect Donald was better than being bullied by the other students. This was the reality of disadvantaged families and children.
Overall
Really good play, really excellent read. Highly recommend it. I’m also the kind of person who enjoys reading about religion and the church, so I was probably the perfect target audience for this read.