Within the book Perry Smith describes a recurring dream involving a tree full of diamonds guarded by a snake and a yellow parrot that saves him. The Bird comes to Perry’s dream and rescues him when he is being beaten by the nun, the bird who, “blinded the nuns with its beak, fed apon their eyes, slaughtered them as they ‘pleaded for mercy’, then so gently lifted him, enfolded him, winged him away to ‘paradise’” (93).

The dream relates to the relationships that Perry had throughout his life. The dreams change slightly over time but the parrot always remained the same, to save him. It acts as a symbol of hope and imagination, it also seems to show gleams of his personality through that representation.