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
Father Flynn delivers a sermon shortly after his conversation with Sister Aloysius. He tells a parable about gossip, saying that a women once spoke badly about a man she barely knew. That night, she dreamt that a “great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her.” The next day, she went to confession. After she explained the dream, the priest told her to go home, take a pillow onto her roof, and use a knife to cut it open. When she followed his instructions, she returned, and the priest asked what happened. She told him that the pillow’s feathers flew all about. “Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind,” the priest said, and when she said that this would be impossible, he told her that this is the nature of gossip, too.
It's fairly obvious that Father Flynn’s sermon about gossip is directed at Sister Aloysius, who he believes is besmirching his name and reputation by accusing him of molesting Donald. The fact that he uses his platform as a priest to deliver this message in such a veiled but pointed way demonstrates once again how willing he is to use his power to intimidate Sister Aloysius. By telling this parable about gossip in a religious setting, he associates Sister Aloysius’s behavior with something sinful and wrong, appealing to her spiritual beliefs because he knows that the majority of her convictions come from her religious devotion.
Themes
