payment page
“It’s bad for children… because their minds are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect...”
This piece of dialogue is spoken by Old Cotter at the beginning of the short story when he and the narrator’s aunt and uncle discuss Father Flynn and his efforts to educate the narrator. Old Cotter is skeptical of Father Flynn’s motives and is concerned with the power imbalance that accompanies a mentor/pupil relationship. He is particularly unnerved because he did not trust Father Flynn and does not think that it is a good idea for him to have had such an intense relationship with a boy who is too young to understand when a boundary is crossed.
“In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle.”
This infamous passage describes the nightmare that the narrator has the night that he learns of Father Flynn’s death. He envisions Father Flynn’s face hanging over him which frightens the narrator and makes him want to hide. The disturbing descriptions of Father Flynn’s face and the emphasis on darkness creates an eerie tone that matches the narrator’s fear and shows that Father Flynn has power over the narrator even in death. Furthermore, the repetition of the word “confess” is crucial because it establishes an abuse of authority as Father Flynn’s ghost tries to inappropriately bare his secrets to a child.
