1Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind1 deals with a young boy named Brian O’Connal who, very early, starts pondering about himself and the world he is placed in. The novel is divided into four parts which emphasize four major steps in the boy’s development. This division into four parts reminds the reader of the four gates the Turkish dervishes have to go through in order to become one with the ultimate Reality. Furthermore, "four" is a sacred number which symbolizes Totality and, undoubtedly this is what Brian is striving for as he longs to become aware of his true self and to become One with the Universe.

2The beginning of the novel stresses the boy’s egocentrism and ignorance. As the novel opens, Brian is four. What he wants is very limited and concrete. He wants to be paid attention to and to be loved. Therefore, he resents his brother’s sickness which turns his cosy world upside down. For example, he is jealous for the baby has got a blanket tent and he has none. However, the boy’s immaturity is best suggested through his language: he has no real language of his own for he has no identity of his own yet. Thus, throughout Part One, he is seen imitating and repeating what he hears, as when he meets Mrs. Hislop and uses the worl "goddam” in relation to the land. His repetition of Sean’s language helps in the characterization since Sean, who has not been introduced yet, is remarkable for his cursing. It also emphasizes Brian’s dependence. Besides, he is still incapable of communicating with people. As psychologists like Piaget have pointed out, up to five, the child’s language is mainly egocentric and made up of monologues. Indeed, throughout Part One, Brian is seen involved in dialogues which resemble monologues, as when he meets Forbsie for the first time. The children, then, do not seem to talk to each other, but rather to themselves. This dialogue epitomizes what L. Ricou calls: "the non-communicating nature of child dialogue"2. Furthermore, the boy is also unable to handle concepts. When Mrs. Hislop tells him that God is a "spirit", he is puzzled and cannot grasp this notion. It is from this state of self-centeredness and ignorance that Brian starts evolving. Although he does not realize it, his brother’s sickness is tremendously important as far as his search for an identity of his own is concerned. For, because or this potential death, Brian has to leave his home shell more and more and he gradually comes to discover the external world, which will help him in defining his identity. Besides, death is one of the key experiences of life.

3As Brian faces death, his feeling of immortality begins to fade. He starts becoming aware of his own mortality and this awareness is fundamental for, as D. G. Jones points out: "Both our uniqueness and our oneness with the world, the twofold root of our identity depends on death"3. Yet Brian’s awareness, as compared with Daddy Sherry’s in W. O. Mitchell’s The Kite4, is limited because of the boy’s age. When Brian first confronts death, he is a murderer as he kills a caterpillar and a spider. He is ignorant and kills them gratuitously, just as Artie does when he cuts the gopher’s tail off. Brian comes to value life as the baby pigeon he had taken as a substitute for his pup dies. For the first time in his life, he has to face the cold facts of death:

The bird’s skin lids were closed over its eyes; the bald head, with its tiny plowshare beak edged with yellow, hung down
The little sack of a body was not warm." (p. 58)

4Yet the pain he feels is not for the pigeon itself but for himself for his feelings have been hurt. However, when Brian decides that it will be buried on the prairie, he is seen maturing. He starts acknowledging the link that exists between all living creatures. This death has taught him responsibility and the next death – the gopher’s – extends this lesson. In this episode, Artie cuts a gopher’s tail off and he happens to be punished by the Young Ben. Artie does not understand why the Young Ben attacks him for he did not do anything to the boy. In fact, he has committed a crime against life and is punished. Brian, thanks to the Young Ben, comes to apprehend the sacred quality of life. Thus, later, when he sees the two-headed calf, he revolts at the absurdity of Nature. He does not understand that imperfection is part of life and is ultimately encompassed in the perfection of the natural cycle’. He realizes it when he faces the runt pig which is sick and deformed. He knows that each life is to be respected, and thus fights so that Sean and Ab will spare it, saying that "killin" a thing’s no favor!" (p. 225). yet, the deaths of the gopher and the two-headed calf also suggested the necessity of death. As Brian’s father dies, the boy has to accept this death as part of the cycle, necessary so that life can go on. He tends to consider it as an end-in-itself, and comes to understand this fact when his grand-mother dies. As Ken Mitchell indicates, Brian has an obvious responsibility m her death. As he keeps opening the window, the chill air cannot but hasten the nearing death. He, then, allows the process of death to take place, "perhaps sensing her need and desire to return again to the prairie’’5. As he becomes an agent of death, he comes to resemble the Young Ben. Yet, whereas the Young Ben’s reaction when faced with the tailless gopher had been purely instintive, Brian’s act is the result of his spiritual development.

5As Brian ponders about the meaning of the cycle of life and death, be is left with uncertainties and he comes to wonder about the Deity too. He is faced with two conceptions of God: his own "R. W." and the institutionalized God in town. "R. W." is clearly related to his own world. He is seen in anthropomorphic terms. He is an extraordinary play-mate with whom the boy enjoys privileged relationships. Yet, as the boy tries to grasp the Deity’s nature, the child’s world becomes intimately linked with the world of the sacred. The drawing he makes of God is an inadequate attempt at suggesting the Deity’s Infinity. In his attempt, he is seen using archetypes: the "round" part of God is obviously a mandalic image which symbolizes God’s perfection. Furthermore, the colors he uses are also archetypal: the "blue" he uses to draw the shy is a color which encompasses all contradictions and stands for the Infinite. This quality in God’s nature is further reinforced by the "yellow" and "green” which Brian also uses. Besides, the colours, in his drawing, also refer to the four elements: the "blue" symbolizing the Air, "red" Fire, "green" Water, and "black" Earth. Before starting his drawing of God, the boy is faced with a white sheet of paper. "White" is God’s color, the color which was about to overcome the darkness which was prevailing upon the still un-created world. Indeed, Brian, in his drawing, tries to represent the Creator and His Creation. The Deity’s Universe is characterized by harmony and perfection. God’s ultimate perfection is further evidenced in Brian’s "song-one": God seems to be imperfect as He suffers from gas attacks, yet His perfection encompasses imperfection. Besides, Brian’s song also states the interconnectedness between all living creatures and their Creator.

6However a less benevolent aspect of the Deity is suggested by the "dust devils" which ran through the town at crucial moments. The wind – as suggested by W. O. Mitchell himself – is "symbolic of Godhood". When Brian experiences a feeling of harmony between himself and the world, there is either a gentle breeze or no wind, likas when he goes onto the prairie for the first time and meets the Young Ben: "For one moment no wind stirred. A butterfly went pelting past. God, Brian decided, must like the boy’s prairie." (p. 12). Yet, the wind is also symbolic of God’s harshness. This is epitomized when Brian is caught lying at school and is treatened with Divine punishment. As he expects it at night, he feels: "a gathering Presence in his room as the wind lifted high, and higher still, keening and keening again..." (p. 94/95). The "wildness" of the wind ultimately corrsponds to the "wildness" which fills Brian’s eyes. The God Brian is confronting is Jehovah, the One who "handed to man the tablets of the Law and who sits m judgement on their lives."6. In spite of this traumatic experience, Brian’s search goes on. He happens, on a Sunday, to reach another level of reality as he watches some dew drops on spirea leaves:

"As he bent more closely over one, he saw the veins of the leaf magnified under the perfect crystal curve of the drop. The barest breath of a wind stirred at his face, and its caress was part of the strange enchantment too.
Within him something was opening, releasing shyly as the petals of a flower open, with such gradualness that he was hardly aware of it." (p. 107)

7The perfection of this privileged moment is stressed by the mandalic images: the "curve" and the "petal" images symbolize the Absolute in which all opposites are abolished. This is further stressed by the "crystal" and "drop" images: although they are tangible they are so limpid that they almost look immaterial. Thus, they stand in between the Visible and the Invisible. Besides, these mandalic images are related to the Center symbolism, therefore it seems that Brian is able to reach his own Center. At this moment, he seems to transcend the polarity which characterizes humanity and to reach the Primordial Universe. This transcendental experience seems indeed to be an initiatory oned – "dew" is symbolic of initiation – in the true meaning of the word: death and resurrection. For, indeed, Brian seems to be born again. Just as God breathed a "breath of life" into the first man’s nostrils to give him life, "the barest breath of a wind" is giving Brian a new life. The image of the opening flower suggests the new potentiality with which Brian is endowed. The "petal" symbolizes the spiritual Center and Brian seems about to discover what his very self is. The feeling of oneness with the universe and its Creator is equated with the feeling he emeriences the very same day at church. All the congregation attends the service, including the outcasts like the Wongs and the Bens. Brian does not seem to call into question their presence, for, it seems to be part of the feeling of Oneness with the living whole. As Brian notices, the "holy holy holy" the congregation sings has a "round" sound – which is another mandalic image. Furthermore, "three" symbolizes Totality too, as "three" merges into "One". The feeling of ritual and natural perfection merges into one. Yet, it seems that Brian calls the ritual religion into question more and more as he comes to feel uneasy about the "wrongness of the Lord’s punishment" and later feels guilty about "being upon the Ben’s side rather than that of Mr. Powelly and the Lord." (p. 261). However, W. O. Mitchell does not imply that the positive aspect of the Deity is to be found in nature and that the evil aspect lies in tow. Interestingly, Brian’s transcendental experience does not occur on the prairie but down town. What Mitchell seems to imply is that a balance between these two co-existing conceptions is to be reached just as Brian has to find a balance between the two realities he is part of: the prairie and the town.

8As Brian is searching for an identity of his own, he seems to have understood the primary importance of the two settings he lives in. In other words, to use Frye’s, he has understood that, in order to answer the question: "Who am I?", he first has to find an answer to: "Where is here?". Brian’s first encounter with the prairie occurs when he is four. He is then struck by the prevailing harmony in the natural world. He is also tempted to identify with the natural environment and especially the Young Ben, as he decides that he will not live in a house anymore. Furthermore, what he calls the "feeling" is, as he notices it himself, "most exquisite upon the prairie or when the wind blew." (p. 1231. Brian’s vision of the world is then characterized by the harmony between all living creatures and between himself and the world. This vision is disrupted when he happens to see the gopher’s decaying corpse, he feels that "prairie’s awful" (p. 128). He comes to fully apprehend the ambivalence of the prairie as he flees from his uncle’s farm and finds himself on the prairie alone at night. All he experiences is a "feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that terrified him" (p. 236). He realizes the precariousness of life and that man is just dust which will be piled along the "black topsoil". As his father dies, he further understands that the passing of man, like that of the prairie creatures, is but "incidental":

"All around him the wind was in the grass with a million timeless whisperings.
A forever-and-forever sound it had, forever and for never. Forever and forever the prairie had been, before there was a town, before he had been, or his father, or his father, or his father before him. Forever for the prairie; never for his father – never again." (p. 246)

9As compared with the shortness of man’s life, the wind and the prairie stand for permanence and eternity. They symbolize the passing of Time and yet, are timeless. This fusion of opposites suggests the Totality of the Divine. In this passage, Brian is faced with the moomuke structure of human existence: just as the moon dies to be born again, humanity is bound to live on. The moon-like quality of life is reinforced by the moon which lightens the night as Mrs. MacMurray wonders why "she had been. A girl, a woman, and now an old woman. She did not find it frightening; just senseless." (p. 2801. This human cycle corresponds to the "new moon, full moon and waning” cycle of the moon. Brian, on the prairie, faces Infinite Time, and this vision, as Mircea Eliade indicates, is a means of knowledge:

"Le Temps peut devenir un instrument de connaissance, en ce sens qu’il nous sumt de projeter une chose ou un etre sur le plan du Temps cosmique pour nous rendre immddiatement compte de son irréalité."7 .

10Furthermore, even if "there is no new thing under the sun", this repetition in human cycle has nonetheless a meaning for, as M. Eliade notices, it confers a reality on things. The timeless quality of the natural habitat and of the wind is further reinforced by the presence of the Young Ben and of Saint Sammy who are, as L. Ricou points out: "a violation of the dictates of Time"8. Although the Young Ben is still physically a child, his father delights in reminding us that "Thun goddam kid was borned growed-up." (p. 85) and Digby comes to wonder if he where a child. Saint Sammy is an old man and yet, he wears a child’s cap and collects match-boxes which he counts when he is troubled. Both characters symbolize the free spirit of the prairie. Both are completely withdrawn from the town and are characterized by the same wilderness which also characterizes the natural world.

11 Brian’s relationships with Saint Sammy and the Young Ben are immediate and instinctive for he, somehow, feels that both characters are intimately linked to his search. The Young Ben is indistinguishable from the prairie. When Brian tells Mr. Hislop that the boy has "prairie hair" (p. 24), he himself stresses the high degree of identification between the two. As K. Mitchell indicates, he is deliberately described as animal-like. The boy’s inscrutability is further reinforced by his silence. Like the natural environment, he is completely indifferent to the townspeople and their ethics. Thanks to the boy, Brian comes to apprehend the primary importance of the natural setting. The boy is then like a priest and Brian his disciple. In some other way, Saint Sammy also teaches Brian something. The old man does appear as a prophet – in the true meaning of the word, i. e. a man who keeps privileged relationships with the Deity and delivers His messages. Along with him, Brian witnesses the presence of God in nature as it manifests itself through the wind. Through the old man, Brian is able to re-capture his privileged vision of God. Saint Sammy almost resembles a shaman: not only has he succeeded in establishing relationships with God but, in some way, he has also abolished Time and History. He seems to have re-integrated a paradisiac time before man’s fall. For, the prairie he lives on, is, as L. Ricou notes, a "real extension of God’s kingdom on earth"9.

12Yet both Saint Sammy and the Young Ben’s identifies are incomplete for their true selves have been engulfed in the natural environment, just as the Abercrombies and Powellys have become only social functions. Powelly and Abercrombie stress the extreme sterility of what N. Frye calls a "garrison mentality”. Their association is typical since, as Jones points out, "the church is the backbone of the garrison mentality"10. They refuse the external wilderness and the wilderness within themselves. They are seen trying to subdue the world, even the dead’s with their rough granite headstones, their everlasting flowers. This reminds the reader of the angel in M. Laurence’s The Stone Angel11. Yet, the town is not entirely negative. Along with K. Mitchell, I do believe that W. O. Mitchell intends to draw a parallel rather than an opposition between the two settings. In the town, there are individuals struggling to define an identity of their own, like M. Palmer who wonders: "Who the hell’s me?" (p. 291). Furthermore, Sean and Digby, who are linked to the town, have succeeded in establishing a satisfactory identity. Both have accepted what they cannot control about themselves. Both are equally important for Brian’s search. Sean, like Saint Sammy, feels the same love for the land as he would for a woman. Yet, he is aware that he needs others, were it only for his irrigation project. So is Digby who likes nothing better than chats with his friends Palmer and Hislop. He seems to be the Young Ben’s counterpart, as K. Mitchell notices. Just as tne boys helps Brian to articulate his relationships with the natural world, Digby provides Brian with the intellectual equipment and maturity he still lacks. Besides, Dean and Digby refuse to be overcome by either setting, Se’an refuses to turn into another Saint Sammy and Digby to become an Abercrombie. Yet, in order to preserve one’s identity, W. O. Mitchell implies, fight is necessary. As Brian decides that he will be a "dirt doctor", he seems to have reached some kind of balance. Yet, since at the end of the novel Brian is still a child, we may assume that his identity is not complete yet. The openended novel seems to suggest that his quest has to go on. Indeed, Brian has learnt a lot about himself and the world he lives in, Sean and Digby have shown him how the individual can fit into society without losing his true self, yet we may wonder if the Young Ben in Brian will not eventually disappear. Just as Sean and Digby have constantly to struggle to protect themselves, Brian’s search involves a lot of fighting and suffering. Suffering seems to be a means of knowledge, thus whenever Brian makes an important discovery, his throat is "aching"12.

Interestingly, the one who seems to have seen the wind – to have reached the ultimate reality – has been suffering a lot. Suffering does seem purifying and is seen as a sacrement. Yet, unlike Saint Sammy, Brian cannot see the wind. All he can do is feel it. Yet, W. O. Mitchell’s novel is a book of learning. As Brian becomes aware of the conflictual duality of the Universe, he is able to reach a certain harmony. Besides, as he is aware of the reality he is placed in, he is able to evolve. In his quest, Brian has "four" teachers – and "four" we noticed is the number of Totality. Although Brian does not reach this Totality, he has been nonetheless maturing and this, W. O. Mitchell suggests, is the most important thing.