Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Doubt: A Parable, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Moral Responsibility
Power and Accountability
Doubt and Uncertainty
Tradition vs. Change
Summary
Analysis
In the gymnasium, Father Flynn holds a basketball and talks to a group of boys about how to shoot foul shots. “It’s psychological,” he says, saying that the hardest part about taking a foul shot is making sure to not overthink the task. Moving on, he comments on the fact that many of the boys have dirty fingernails. “I don’t want to see that,” he says, adding that it’s all right to have long nails as long as they’re clean. “Look at my nails,” he says. “They’re long, I like them a little long, but look at how clean they are. That makes it okay.” He then pokes fun at a student for having extremely “filthy paws,” suggesting that no girls will want to talk to him if they see his dirty nails. The group of students laugh at this, and Flynn “react[s] genially” to their laughter.
In this scene, Shanley presents Father Flynn as a very likable man. As he talks to the boys about personal grooming, he makes jokes that endear him to them, ultimately casting him as an approachable adult. This, in turn, suggests that he most likely rejects Sister Aloysius’s belief that educators should be strict and fearsome authorities who scare their students. On the contrary, it seems obvious that he wants his students to like him and see him as friendly and welcoming.
Themes
