Doubt: A Parable

How is innocence portrayed in the play? Is it a virtue or a vice?

Father Flynn, is his opening sermon, says that “doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty” (6). How does doubt bond characters together in the play?

How does the play’s setting in 1964 influence the story? Do you think that things would have gone differently had the play been set in a different time period?

Do you think that Sister James comes to believe Father Flynn because of the lack of evidence, or because she finds it convenient to do so? Why?

Father Flynn states, “What actually happens in life is beyond interpretation. The truth makes a bad sermon” (39). Do you think the author (John Patrick Shanley) would agree with this sentiment, even though he called his play a parable?

What do you think is symbolized by Father Flynn telling the crow to be quiet at the end of Scene 7?

In the preface, Shanley says that we live in a courtroom culture, and suggests that “maybe it’s because deep down under the chatter we have come to a place where we know that we don’t know…anything” (vii). How is this mixture of uncertainty and “extreme advocacy” (vii) displayed in the play?

What do you think Monsignor Benedict’s portrayal in the play says about Shanley’s opinion of the role of the church hierarchy during the Church’s sexual scandals of the late 2oth century?