Father Moody Character Analysis

Father Moody is the local priest. He visits the Lisbons after Cecilia’s death in an attempt to get them to open up about the tragedy. Like many of the neighborhood fathers before him, though, he finds himself swept to the television by Mr. Lisbon, who sits him in front of a baseball game and appears unwilling to discuss Cecilia’s suicide. Giving up, Father Moody goes looking for Mrs. Lisbon, but he doesn’t find her. He’s astonished by the messy state of the house as he moves through it. What really stands out to him, though, is the fact that the Lisbon sisters—when he comes across them upstairs—seem deeply distraught. In retrospect, he’s convinced that the sisters had no plan to kill themselves, contrary to some theories suggesting that they planned to do so all along.