The Sisters Summary & Analysis

A local priest has suffered his third stroke, and the narrator suspects that this will be his last. Every night, the narrator passes the house where the priest lives to discover whether or not the time has finally come. The narrator is curious about the priest’s paralysis; to him, the word is just as mysterious as certain words in the Catechism, like gnomon and simony. The narrator both fears paralysis and is curious to see what effects it has on the priest’s body.

One day, the narrator goes downstairs to supper and hears Old Cotter speaking about someone, saying “there was something queer…there was something uncanny about him.” The narrator is frustrated by Old Cotter’s rambling, thinking to himself that Old Cotter is a “tiresome old fool.” Old Cotter goes on to say that it was “one of those peculiar cases…” and, the narrator’s uncle, realizing that the narrator doesn’t know who they’re talking about, tells him that the priest, Father Flynn, has died.

The narrator’s uncle shares with Old Cotter that his nephew and Father Flynn were “great friends.” Neither man seems to approve of the narrator’s relationship with the older priest. Old Cotter says, “I wouldn’t like children of mine […] to have much to say to a man like that,” and then explains that he thinks young people should spend time with people their own age. The narrator’s uncle agrees, jokingly referring to his nephew as a “Rosicrucian” who ought to exercise more and spend less time on his religious studies. Although he says nothing, the narrator is irritated by the older men’s opinions.

Later that night, the narrator is struggling to fall asleep. He tries to put together Old Cotter’s cryptic words from earlier but is unable to. He keeps visualizing Father Flynn’s “heavy grey face,” and, to avoid thinking of the dead priest, he “[tries] to think of Christmas.” But the narrator is still haunted by images of the dead priest, and imagines that the man’s smiling grey face, with lips “so moist with spittle” was trying to confess something to the narrator. The narrator imagines that he smiles back at the face, “as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin.”

The next morning, the narrator walks over to Father Flynn’s house on Great Britain Street and reads the death announcement. He thinks that, were the priest still alive, he would likely have gone in to give Father Flynn some snuff. Due to his strokes, the priest wasn’t able to take the snuff without “spilling half the snuff on the floor.” The narrator reflects that “it may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look.”

The narrator considers going in to see Father Flynn’s body, but feels too shy to knock. So, he walks away, surprised to find that “neither the day nor [he] seemed in a mourning mood.” He goes on to think that he feels, in fact, that he “had been freed from something by his death.” The narrator is surprised at these feelings, because Father Flynn had taught him many things. The priest had studied in Rome at the Irish College and had instructed the narrator in Latin. The narrator recalls that many of Father Flynn’s lessons focused on the most complicated aspects of the Church—even those which the narrator himself had thought were simple. Father Flynn would quiz the narrator on how to handle various situations, the severity of sins, and the duties of various church figures. Indeed, Father Flynn appreciated the complex aspects of the Church, and at one point told the narrator that “fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Dictionary.”

The narrator remembers that Father Flynn used to ask him to recite portions of the Mass, and as he was speaking, the priest would use snuff and smile. The narrator remembers that the priest would “uncover his big discolored teeth and let his tongue lie upon his upper lip – a habit which had made [the narrator] feel uneasy in the beginning of [their] acquaintance before [he] knew him well.”

Later that evening, the narrator goes with his aunt to visit the house where Father Flynn had lived. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Nannie, one of the two sisters who took care of Father Flynn in his old age. The three of them go up to kneel before Father Flynn’s coffin. The narrator attempts to pray but is distracted by the sound of Nannie’s prayers. He also notices that she has dressed herself very clumsily.

As he kneels before Father Flynn’s coffin, the narrator imagines that the priest is smiling. However, when he stands to look at the corpse, he sees that Father Flynn, although “vested as for the altar” with “his large hands loosely retaining a chalice” is not smiling, nor is his appearance very elegant—the narrator observes the same huge, grey face that he visualized the night he learned the priest died. He notices, also, a “heavy odor in the room – the flowers.”

As they leave Father Flynn, Nannie, the narrator, and his aunt bless themselves and meet Eliza, the other sister who cared for Father Flynn. Nannie offers everyone sherry, which the narrator accepts, as well as cream crackers. The narrator, afraid that he would “make too much noise eating them,” declines. The group sits in silence, gazing at the fireplace.

Eventually, the narrator’s aunt breaks the silence by saying that the priest has gone to a better place. Eliza nods and agrees, and then shares with the room that Father Flynn had a “beautiful death.” She shares that Father Flynn looked peaceful after he had died, that he had a “beautiful corpse.” The narrator’s aunt assures Eliza that she and her sister treated Father Flynn very well while he was alive. Nannie has fallen asleep, and Eliza acknowledges that although she and her sister had help from other members of the community in preparing Father Flynn’s body and the church for the funeral, it was Father Flynn himself who made most of his own arrangements before he died.

Suddenly, Eliza’s tone changes. She acknowledges that “something queer [came] over” Father Flynn toward the end of his life. She recalls how she would bring him his soup and “find him with is breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open.” What’s more, she adds that he dreamed of getting a carriage to drive over to the house where all three siblings were born. Remembering this, Eliza begins to cry, and then shares that the “duties of the priesthood were too much” for her brother.

After a silence, Eliza observes that Father Flynn’s poor health began after he broke an empty chalice. After Father Flynn broke the chalice, he became so nervous that he began to walk around aimlessly One day, he disappeared, and no one could find him for hours until a clerk suggested they tried the chapel. There, Eliza shares, they found Father Flynn “sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like softly to himself.” At this, she stops to listen, and the narrator does too. He reminds himself that Father Flynn is lying dead in his coffin, “an idle chalice” perched on his chest. Eliza continues, saying that it was at that moment when they knew “there was something gone wrong with him…”