Windows

“The eye is the window of the soul, the mouth the door. The intellect, the will, are seen in the eye; the emotions, sensibilities, and affections, in the mouth. The animals look for man's intentions right into his eyes. Even a rat, when you hunt him and bring him to bay, looks you in the eye.” Hiram Powers, American sculptor (1805 - 1873)

Eyes dictate everything that we know. From seeing the blush on a pretty girls face to seeing what the weather is like outside. In both the movie Doubt, and the play Molly Sweeney, Vision and eyes are large themes. The eyes are the windows to our souls.

In this shot, the priest, Father Brendan Flynn has just entered the chapel. As he walks in he looks up through banisters to where a piece of stained glass, showing an eye, shined down on him. He turns and gives a look of knowing and walks on. The way the eye is the only source of light in this scene highlights its importance and its omnipotent nature. The eye could also mean god. This would be interesting because the banisters create a barrier between the two. Is something coming between The Father and his god? The allocations that are being put on him would be enough to shake any mans faith.

            Through out the movie he is under a lot of scrutiny from the nuns at their school. The ever-present eyes on him is really exemplified that maybe an even higher power is watching him. The stereotype of the Father touching a boy has run rampant through our society, giving us an interesting viewpoint to judge what is happening. Although nothing is ever clearly stated whether he did what he said, there is lots of abstract evidence presented. He is accused again and again by sister James who has alternative motives for wanting him to leave. In the end he resigns and moves on. He is forced out of a job that he loves. 

            Molly, The lead character of the play, is blind and has been all her life. She was perfectly okay with that until her husband frank said she wasn’t and tried to fix her. Although she thinks she is okay she still has surgery done to try to “Fix” the “problem”. She gains vision for a while but then loses it, and in doing so she loses all that made her fine in here own eyes. Now she has lost hope in everything; “I think I see nothing at all now”. She used to have her own vision that was ruined by seeing what everyone else sees.

In both characters they have lost something they love. They both lose their true vision. The father loses his closeness with god, while molly loses here own version on sight. Even though people that have vision, sometimes cannot see what’s in front of them. Frank cannot see that molly is happy with her original vision. that sister James didn’t really know if father was having an inappropriate relationship with a boy.