Scene 6 Summary

Father Flynn preaches another sermon, this one on the evils of gossip. He recounts a parable about a woman who had bad dreams about being judged by God for being a gossip, and who was told by her priest to stand on the roof of her house, rip open a feather pillow, scatter the feathers to the wind, and then go about picking them all up. "That," says the priest, "is gossip."

Scene 6 Analysis

The primary function of this brief scene is to both indicate and illuminate Father Flynn's reaction to Sister Aloysius' accusations. There are two things to note here, first that the story of the gossipy woman is, like the story of the lost sailor in Flynn's first sermon (Scene 1), essentially a parable. The repetition of this narrative technique reinforces the idea that the play as a whole is also intended...