The Painted Bird: Why do they take care of the boy?

The way the people of the several villages are treating the boy is a little puzzling. One moment, they tolerate and sometimes protect him, and other times, they are as cruel as can be. The author seems to show this constant changing throughout the reading so far.

The boy goes from village to village. Most of the times, he is teased, abused, or seen as a demon that the villagers cannot be around. However, these people sometimes let him into their homes, some people hire him as a helping hand , and sometimes he is a companion. He is fed and cared for and he is not treated like a slave. They recognize him as a human friend like themselves, but they abuse him physically and mentally. These people view Gypsies almost like demons and unfit to be with them or be favored by God. If this is how they thought, they would treat him as a slave if they really needed him for work or they would get rid of him.

A few times, the villagers who house the boy either hide him or tell him to run away when the soldiers search the village. I did not understand if they did this because they cared for the boy or if they were protecting themselves from being punished for housing a Gypsy. The latter was explained in the italicized letters in the beginning, but i think that they did for both reasons because they could have thrown the boy to the soldiers claiming they had caught him for the soldiers. This would show an incomplete hatred for the Gypsies.

Also, the people do not like the Gypsy magic the boy is believed to possess, but they encourage the rituals and superstitions and magical medical practices. Then they treat the boy as a necessity for their fortune.

This is all put together becomes puzzling. These people are discriminatory but they are not completely. It is like they were told to behave a certain way but they are not those type of people. They may be violent, but they show their violence to anything and anybody, not just those they discriminate towards. They are more violent towards those they discriminate against because the rest of their society does and they do not get in trouble for it.

Here is a website for the psychology of discriminators:

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Prejudice-and-Discrimination.topicArticleId-26957,articleId-26886.html