Flannery O'Conner (for Flannery O'Connor)

The peafowl (female--peahen, male--peacock) is an aloof bird, a breed that doesn't mix well with others. Iridescent and multicolored, the peacock symbolizes the sin of vanity. Conversely, it symbolizes wisdom and truth, the markings on its plumage resembling all-seeing eyes. The American Southern novelist Flannery O’Connor admired these regal creatures, and kept as many as forty of them at her ancestral home in Milledgeville, Georgia. A reoccurring theme in O’Connor’s work is that her vanity-driven characters experience a grotesque, sudden, and violent “moment of grace” -- an instant where the mind’s eye is opened.

Flannery O’Conner appears 12 times in OhioLink, a moderate probability typo on the Ballard List.

When O'Connor's friend scolded his young daughter for chasing her peacocks, O’Connor told him to let her go. “She won’t catch them unless they want her to.”

(Quote from Flannery O’Connor : In Celebration of a Genius, edited by Sarah Gordon. Peacock tail, Wikimedia Commons)

Janelle Fore