Reply To: The Searcher: Significance of the rooks
Excellent insights from everyone! Throughout the book, the rooks (as Susan A and others points out) mirror the villagers and provide foreshadowing. Cal is wrong when he thinks Ireland is without its feral creatures and lack of dangers – they are just presented in the birds he sees every day. Like the rooks, the villagers are watchful, playful, curious, suspicious and can hold a grudge. He can make an enemy of them or they can be benevolent and give him gifts. What Cal finds in the village is a complicated social pecking order and he discovers that if you try and cross over into “insider business” there are serious problems.
He’s trying to win over the trust of the rooks, leaving them offerings etc to become their friends and have them give him presents. He does help one stray rook who’s been cast out of the group and is getting pecked – Trey. She brings him gifts, just not the shiny ones he’s expecting. And Noreen, Mart, Lena all slowly give him signs of friendships and give him gifts as well.
However, Cal also discovers the rooks will turn on him if he’s weak or does something they don’t like. At one point he notes that the rooks are “laughing at him”. Later, Mart and his pals poke fun at him in the pub. The villagers will mock someone like Lord Muck who thinks too “high and mighty” of themselves, but the mocking devolves into threats and violence if they think someone has stepped out of line. Just as Cal observes the rooks pecking and eating the flesh of a rabbit, Mart and his gang beat up Cal and kill Brendan. So the rooks are a wonderful allusion to the village.
