I don’t think that the mailman in anyway represents Jesus. If anything, I think that he represents the type of non-secularly spiritual, emotional and intellectual relationship the main character has been longing for, but has been denied for the past 15 years.
This guy is everything her husband is not – he reads Toni Morrison (an African-American feminist writer); he reads the poetry of Philip Larkin (a man who was obsessed with pornography); he is a charming flirt; he hangs out at the library – a repository of multiple layers of knowledge and information; he has a romantic nature and is intellectually curious. The mailman has the ability and the desire to expose her to the outside world that she has been sheltered from. He can expand her horizons.
Her husband, on the other hand, always seems to hide behind the words “Jesus” or “God,” and the patriarchal hierarchical structure of their church sect. She can’t communicate with him because his scope seems to be limited only to these basic tent poles. When she confronts him with this observation, he loses control and tries to choke her. His goal is subjugation, not expansion.
There is something that the mailman says to her at their second meeting that seems to underline this: she asks if he knows the Bible, and he replies with something to the effect that when a man knows Shakespeare, the Bible and art, then a man is considered educated. His world is not limited to only one point of reference, while her husband’s world resides within a small box.
Lastly, there is an amusing statement made by Farmiga on the DVD commentary track, which is a discussion of the film with her real-life husband and the actor who plays her husband. During the last scene with the mailman on her front lawn, one of the guys makes a comment that the postman’s attention to her character can be considered creepy, and Farmiga response with “He’s not creepy, he’s just Irish.” Jesus is never mentioned.
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