The Path of the Peacock

In the book The King of the Birds Flannery O’Connor wrote long passages describing what she found best in the peacock, namely his “green bronze arch around him a galaxy of gazing, haloed suns.” For O’Connor, the tail of the peacock is a “map of the universe,” a thing which should bring forth feelings befitting such glory. In The King of the Birds, she expresses disdain towards those unaffected by the sight of the peacock’s raised tail. To O’Connor, the peacock’s tail must elicit appreciation for its own sake. She states “Once or twice I have been asked what the peacock is ‘good for’— a question which gets no answer from me because it deserves none.” David Mayer avers that the vision of a peacock’s tail raised high, with its darkened orbs above all else, looked like “the Eucharist placed in the monstrance” to O’Connor. Thus, the peacock’s tail is of divine import. In Roman Catholicism, the monstrance is the elaborate vessel in which the consecrated host — for Catholics, the physical body of Christ— is displayed during processions. To O’Connor, a devout Catholic, this image is loaded. Secondly, the peacock has been connected to Catholic symbolism since the Middle Ages. As Mayer points out, in Catholic thought, “the peacock sheds its colorful feathers in late fall and then regains them in spring as if brought back to life, like a resurrection.” O’Connor mentions in a letter to A. that “It… stands in medieval symbology for the Church — the eyes are the eyes of the Church.” 

The peacock, due to his unique appearance, is able to point to God’s presence on earth in a way few other objects could. As Gilbert Muller writes, O’Connor used “objects that could radiate outward in meaning to the point of mystery that she was trying to reveal: a peacock, a dilapidated car, a statue of a Negro, a tattoo of a Byzantine Christ.” Though O’Connor found many paths to symbolism in the peacock’s tail, all these trails pointed to God. 

One story of O’Connor’s, The Displaced Person, places a peacock in the starring role. In this story, every major character encounters and is judged by what Stanley Hyman termed the “spiritual test” of the peacock. A character’s reaction to the peacock shows the legitimacy of that character’s actions and of his or her beliefs about the world. When a character interacts with the peacock, he is reacting to a symbol of Christ’s divine power on earth, a reaction which serves as the basis for the judgement imposed upon him. 

In The Displaced Person, Mrs. Shortley, a hired hand on the farm where this story takes place, never notices the peacock for what it is, though it is often with her. The novella opens with them together, Mrs. Shortley watching the Displaced Person arrive while the peacock is standing behind her, looking “as if his attention were fixed in the distance on something no one else could see.” Later, she envisions herself in front of heaven’s gate as “a giant angel with wings as wide as a house, telling the Negroes that they would have to find another place” while the peacock’s tail hangs down in front of her true field of vision. In this moment, “she might have been looking at a map of the universe but she didn’t notice it any more than she did the spots of the sky that cracked the dull green of the tree.” Every time Mrs. Shortley and the peacock are brought together, Mrs. Shortley acts contrary to the peacock and does not even notice she does so. When the peacock looks off into the distance, Mrs. Shortley is focused on the road at her feet. When the peacock’s beauty is brought up to her by the priest, she likens it to a chicken. When the peacock displays a “map of the universe” to her, Mrs. Shortley enjoys racist inward visions. Finally, when she speaks her great prophecy that “The children of wicked nations will be butchered, legs where arms should be, foot to face, ear in the palm of hand,” she thinks she is prophesying against the Displaced Person. But the peacock is conspicuously absent, for she is wrong; this prophecy is actually against her. And the prophecy is fulfilled when she suffers a stroke leaving the farm: “She suddenly grabbed Mr. Shortley’s elbow and Sarah Mae’s foot at the same time and began to tug and pull on them as if she were trying to fit the two extra limbs onto herself…She thrashed forward and backward clutching at everything…Mr. Shortley’s head, Sarah Mae’s leg, the cat, a wad of white bedding, her own big moon-like knee.” It is her own family who are the subject of her prophecy. But as Mrs. Shortley dies, she has one final vision, where “her eyes like blue-painted glass seemed to contemplate for the first time the tremendous frontiers of her true country.” Earlier in The Displaced Person Mrs. Shortley consistently turned away from true sight, which was represented in the peacock, but here she finally gains it. Though one cannot know for certain, it appears as though Mrs. Shortley has now realized her true status as a displaced person and a deluded prophet.

There is also the character of the priest who is a foil to all who ignore the peacock and fail his test. The priest is the only major character tested by the peacock who escapes divine punishment, for he loves the peacock. Throughout The Displaced Person, the priest continuously shows admiration for the peacock, and recognizes its importance. Upon seeing the peacock, he remarks things such as “What a beauti-ful birdrrrd!” “A tail full of suns,” “Christ will come like that!” and “The Transfiguration.” The priest has what O’Connor called, in The King of the Birds, the proper reaction to a peacock. For the priest first notices the peacock’s beauty and goes on to recognize the theological and religious significance in the peacock. Because “nothing survived but him and the peacock” (for Mrs. Shortley dies of a stroke, her family leaves the farm, and the farm owner is left bedridden), O’Connor shows that what the priest saw in the peacock was right, later confirming this view in her letters: “the priest sees the peacock as standing for the Transfiguration, for which it is most certainly a beautiful symbol.” 

In the end, it is the priest and the peacock alone that are left whole. Only those who cling to Christ will escape life on earth to Paradise. And we may cling to Christ through the means of simple things, as O’Connor’s The Displaced Person adjures us readers to do. The Displaced Person calls us to notice the beauty of the peacock and follow the path of its tail to Christ.