O'Connor was a hard-core bird lover. Her favorite bird? Yes, the
peacock. She owned dozens of them and considered herself their
servant. In her November 25, 1955 letter to her friend Betty
Hester, O'Connor discussed the peacock in "The Displaced
Person": The Priest sees the peacock as standing for the
Transfiguration [one of Christ's stages of transformation], for
which it is most certainly a most beautiful symbol. It also
stands in medieval symbology for the Church – the eyes are the
eyes of the Church. (source: Collected Works, 971) Notice that
O'Connor doesn't try to tell us how to read the peacock in the
story, but rather to share with us what it means to her. The
quote suggests that she uses the peacock to let us know what she
thinks of a character. For example Father Flynn and Astor are
the only characters who seem to care about the peacocks: the
priest is fixated on the bird, and Astor is upset about the fact
that Mrs. McIntyre starved the peacock population from twenty
plus to one peacock and two peah