Flawed Religion in Who Has Seen the Wind
By Don Marcial Ragot
He is a man on the verge of middle age with a face of sorrow or compassion. He has brown to black hair, which reaches down to his shoulder, and beard. This is the image of Jesus, which people all over the world recognize. He neither has Pierce Brosnan’s piercing blue eyes nor Angelina Jolie’s full lips. He is shown as an ordinary man with no special physical attribute. Despite of his commonplace appearance, his face is instantly recognizable even for a 4 four year old child.
Man had painted his omnipotent creator as a regular man in an effort to understand Him better. By painting Him as an ordinary man, Man thought that He will be easier to understand. Two millennia had already passed, but God is still a mystery for man. To ease his confusion and chagrin, man gives a connotation to God, instead of finding the truth behind Him. He gives Him meaning instead of unraveling His mystery. The religious image of today’s “God” is made up by man in an effort to understand Him better and to ease his puzzlement and frustration. Today’s religion is structured and based on man’s attempt to understand God. In Who Has Seen the Wind, W. O. Mitchell has poked fun on this kind of religion. He has painted the readers an insightful picture of how the society uses religion for its own gain. He has shown that the result of a fallacious and vindictive society is a flawed religion. He has satirically written about a religion that is dictated by human expectations and faults. He has also shown how man in an attempt to understand God denigrate religion and use it for his own ambitions and plans
First of all, the religion in Who Has Seen the Wind was bound by finicky human expectations. Man expects God to be the omnipotent arbitrator that resides in heaven and looks after things. He thinks that religion is a set of behavioral codes that dictate one’s life. In the novel, W.O. Mitchell tried to convey to the...