The Responsibility Of Father Flynn's Innocence In The Play '

The play Doubt is a powerful play that pins two religious forces against one another for the sake of a child innocence in the 1960’s. Father Flynn is accused by Sister Aloysius for taking sexual advantage of a young African American boy Donald Muller. There is no strong evidence of any foul play between Father Flynn and Donald Muller but there is not strong evidence of Father Flynn’s innocence either. That is what this play does so well, it leaves an almost impossible answer to the question and this leaves the reader in doubt. It leaves the outcome up to the reader to choose whether or not if Father Flynn is guilty of these terrible acts.Father Flynn throughout the play is never shown doing anything wrong in play but just things that raise suspicion of him and that is why you can

Father Flynn’s innocent is brought into question pretty early into the play after Donald Muller comes back and is acting strangely after a meeting with Father Flynn in the rectory. He came back with his head down on the desk and the smell of alcohol on his breath. In any school this would automatically start to raise suspicion of someone with a child coming back in the state that he was in. After a meeting with between Sister James and Sister Aloysius, Sister James is ordered to keep an eye for any suspicious acts of Father Flynn. They have a right to be suspicious with what has happened because Catholic Priests have done such heinous acts in the past, but just because something like this could warrant the thought of possible molestation of a child does not mean that it did happen. Donald Muller is the only African American Child in this school in a pressing time of the Civil Rights movement in America and not only that, Donald Muller’s Father is an very abusive one as well. This could very well warrant the private meeting between Father Flynn and Donald Muller over the what has been happening and at home and what