Analysis of Sister Aloysius’s Attitude

Analysis of Sister Aloysius’s attitude

General history

The movie is set in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination (post 1963), where people seem to be reverting back there core beliefs (the religious institutions having greater influence compared to government institution).

Even 400 years after the treaty of Westphalia the male dominated Catholic Church still practiced a certain degree of control over the society; this had resulted in the followers to have relatively conservative values. Sister Aloysius authoritarian tendency, her disdain for change, her importance on religious symbols and her view of the male members of the clergy were mostly a product of both the environment and the church’s policies.

Salient features

* The essential conflict between the sister Aloysius and father Flynn is that sister Aloysius believes that the old norms and values followed by the church should be maintained. Since father Flynn doesn’t conform with her belief she forms an unfavorable attitude towards him.

* Father Flynn’s behavior towards kids ,his fraternizing with his students ,his use of argots to relate with them are perceived by sister Aloysius to have some deviant ulterior motive. This was a result of her attitude towards father Flynn.

* Sister Aloysius constantly rationalizes her preconceived notion to strengthen her beliefs. The use of ball points as a form of slacking and the singing of new jingles as a form of glorifying hedonist entities are all examples of how she strengthens her belief. Apart from rationalization her defense mechanism seems to employ denial, regression, displacement to avoid conflict between her belief and the new information. Sister Aloysius displacing her anger on the old nun (on the phone) is clearly a reaction to father Flynn explanation (a version she is not willing to accept, her throwing a temper tantrum when father Flynn doesn’t accept her accusation is clearly a form of regression.

* Another major determinant of...