The Displaced Person on the Second Read

Hello again! Oh, how I have missed blogging! I am not sure what we will be discussing in class today, so I'll just go on my own little path. As I am reading these stories for a second time, one thing that I am most interested in is the beginning of the stories. I think that a lot of the time, when I am reading a story for the first time, I am mainly reading for plot, so a lot of the symbolism or intricacies of the first page are lost on me as I am trying to figure out the setting, characters, and the basic plot. On the second read though, I already know the plot and the basic characters, so I am able to look at the structure of the story and some of the symbolism.

I think one of the biggest symbols in this story is the peacock. I am very interested in the symbolism of the peacock in Flannery O'Connor's stories, but I can't remember discussing the peacock in class last time (although that may have been the class I missed). The first copy of "A Good Man is Hard To Find" that I owned was yellow with a picture of a peacock and a woman following behind the peacock (a picture from the beginning of this story?). I did a little google search (I need to stop) and found what Cassie blogged previously, that in Christian art, peacocks represent immortality and its feathers represent omnipotence. Then, I found a website that said, "in the early part of the 20th century in the West, it was considered very bad luck to keep them in the home." Hmmmm.... These two interpretations are in contrast to one another, yet I think that they both work in this story. Is it fair to blame bad luck on a peacock, though?

I also thought it would be interesting to relate this to the idea of xenophobia. The peacock is kind of "the other" on a farm, isn't it? It's not a chicken, you can't eat it, that makes it kind of an odd animal to have. I think the peacock could be related to some of the bigger issues of xenophobia in this story. (And there's a sentence I never thought I would say!)

Okay, so I just reread Cassie's post from last time and I really like her connection between the eyes of the peacock and how Guizac is treated. I think this is a great connection between the symbolism and the xenophobia in the story.