ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the conflicting depictions of teachers and teaching prevalent in Shanley’s Doubt. In particular, I focus on how each teacher conceives of themselves as instruments of the educative process and how that conception (of themselves and the process) reflect these characters’ greater perceptions of their overall spiritual calling. As I position these teachers’ pedagogical and curricular views against one another, I also illustrate how the inherent ambiguity of Shanley’s narrative – it is about doubt, after all – serves to uniquely valorize and demonize each character. In other words, given the resonant lack of absolutes, each teacher can simultaneously be seen as a villain, a hero, a sinner and a saint. As such, Doubt casts just as much speculation on the guilt of Father Flynn as it does about the pedagogical viability of his staff.
