Doubt Parable Quotes

[Vernie Montagna]

Thispowerful and shattering play, adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is more relevant and urgent than ever. It challenges us to reflect on our supposed morals, question our faith, and dares us to doubt our long-held beliefs.

Duration

1 hour and 30 mins (no intermission)

Late Seating Advisory

- For the enjoyment of all audience members, all events start promptly at the time printed on the ticket.

- Please be seated 15 minutes before the performance start time.

- Strictly no late admission.

- Due to the nature of the performance, there will strictly be no admission or re-admission into the venue once the performance has commenced.

This was a parable to depict in a gripping manner how doubt can poison the mind and vitiate the atmosphere, with everyone labouring under the illusion that things are black and white when they are most certainly not. Kudos to the director and the actors, all of the them did a stellar job.

I present the following long quote from near the beginning of the book. I nearly wept the first time I read this. A parable (he who has ears, let him hear), for we who wait in absurd rooms and hope to receive a draught of that gentle liquid and remember.

When Jose Arcadio Buendia realized that the plague had invaded the town, he gathered together the heads of families to explain to them what he knew about the sickness of insomnia, and they agreed on methods to prevent the scourge from spreading to other towns in the swamp. That was why they took the bells off the goats, bells that the Arabs had swapped them for macaws, and put them at the entrance to town at the disposal of those who would not listen to the advice and entreaties of the sentinels and insisted on visiting the town. All strangers who passed, through the streets of Macondo at that time had to ring their bells so that the sick people would know that they were healthy. They were not allowed to eat or drink anything during their stay, for there was no doubt but that the illness was transmitted by mouth, and all food and drink had been contaminated by insomnia. In that way they kept the plague restricted to the perimeter of the town. So effective was the quarantine that the day came when the emergency situation was accepted as a natural thing and life was organized in such a way that work picked up its rhythm again and no one worried any more about the useless habit of sleeping.

Visitacion did not recognize him when she opened the door and she thought he had come with the idea of selling something, unaware that nothing could be sold in a town that was sinking irrevocably into the quicksand of forgetfulness. He was a decrepit man. Although his voice was also broken by uncertainty and his hands seemed to doubt the existence of things, it was evident that he came from the world where men could still sleep and remember. Jose Arcadio Buendia was found sitting in the living room fanning himself with a patched black hat as he read with compassionate attention the signals pasted to the walls. The old man greeted him with a broad show of affection, afraid that he had known him at another time and that he did not remember him now. But the visitor was aware of his falseness. The old man felt himself forgotten, not with the irremediable forgetfulness of the heart, but with a different kind of forgetfulness, which was more cruel and irrevocable and which he knew very well because it was the forgetfulness of death. Then he understood. He opened the suitcase crammed with indecipherable objects and from among them he took out a little case with many flasks. He gave Jose Arcadio Buendia a drink of a gentle color and the light went on in his memory. His eyes became moist from weeping even before he noticed himself in an absurd living room where objects were labeled and before he was ashamed of the solemn nonsense written on the walls, and even before he recognized the newcomer with a dazzling glow of joy.

3a8082e126