Who Has Seen The Wind Existentialism

One overarching theme of ‘s W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind (1947) is the incongruity between the wild and the domesticated. While this heterogeneity is often represented physically – Mitchell goes to great lengths to describe the vastness of the Saskatchewan prairie – it also manifests as a series of personality conflicts between adult characters. Although protagonist Brian self-assigns the role of mediator upon aspiring to become a ‘dirt doctor,’ he is not the first to desire placation. Rather, is it excommunicated Mr. John Hislop who serves as the first unsuccessful intermediary between the town and what lies beyond it. Forced to appease his unsympathetic parish while nurturing an existential identity crisis, it is Hislop’s inability
While Who Has Seen The Wind is wrought with similarly questioning characters, Hislop is unique as he does not only question his own obligations to his world but the obligations of humanity in general. True to his mediatory nature, Hislop mentions that he is able to "[separate] himself from the phenomena of his experience:" (29) he views himself as both within and without both of the town's realms. However, the pastor often crumples under the moral responsibility such thinking requires and chooses to reject his reality completely. One of Hislop's fist scenes in the novel is an example of this. Stressed about whenever or not to mow his law to appease Mrs. Abercrombie, Hislop is so tormented by the insignificant influence that one patch of grass has on the town as a whole and whenever or not it truly is "unpleasant in the sight of the Lord" (29) that he abandons his pursuit for later contemplation. While such a rejection emphasizes his failure of duty, Hislop's struggles are significant in other ways: the pressure under which he folds is usually that of determining how wild it is acceptable for one to be among the modernized. During his conversation with Digby, the pastor attempts to connect the uncivilized with the civil by explaining to the teacher that "they," alluding to the the wilder, less-developed mankind of history, "were no different than men today... in the field of moral values"