Uncle Daniel
A portrait of key character Uncle Daniel is offered early on. Notably, the narrator takes great pains to paint that image in a favorable light, asserting that he has:
“big, forget-me-not blue eyes like mine...dresses fit to kill…in a snow-white suit…still the sweetest, most unspoiled thing in the world.”
Bonnie Dee Peacock
There are the Ponders. And then there are the Peacocks. Welty’s Peacocks may not be quite on the same level as the family sharing their name on that infamous episode of The X-Files, but it is important to realize that the Ponders look down upon the Peacocks. Oh, and there is also the fact that Daniel Ponder is on trial for the murder of Bonnie Dee Peacock, whom the narrator describes in terms equally metaphorical, if not quite on the same plane:
“Bonnie Dee Peacock. A little thing with yellow, fluffy hair…one of nine or ten and no bigger than a minute. A good gust of wind might have carried her off any day.”
The Peacocks of Polk
The Peacocks live in Polk. The narrator’s structuring of their hometown—such as it is—says as much about the Ponders as the Peacocks.
“I believe Polk did use to be a town…Polk did use to be on the road. But the road left and it didn’t get up and follow, and neither did the Peacocks.”
Old Man Peacock
Consider the chasm that exists between the narrator’s description of her own kin and that of the patriarch of the Peacock brood. If The Ponder Heart is about anything at all, it is about perspective. Point of view and context is everything and not just in literature. Judgment is easy both for those you know and those you think you know:
“Old Man Peacock…had a face as red as a Tom turkey and not one tooth to his name, but he had on some new pants. I noticed the tag still poking out the seam when he creaked in at the door.”
Hmm, if one reads objectively and peeks between the lines, it almost sounds like Old Man Peacock was dressed…fit to kill. But that is certainly not the impression Edna Eearle Ponder is struggling to put across.
Good Luck and Godspeed
Every once in a while a reader comes across a simile (or even a simple metaphor) that is stumper for everyone. Such is the case in the description of the funeral provided by the narrator. Many have tried to figure out just what the meaning is here and none have succeeded. (Look it up on the internet if you think this hyperbole.) If anyone out there can be informative enough to provide a definition for the word in question here—and you will know it when you see it—please be so kind enough as to put the mystery to rest:
“The funeral was what you’d expect if you’d ever seen Polk—crowded. It was hot as fluzions in that little room.”
