25 Then she realizes the one who answers and responses to all of her writing is God
who lives inside her. “This is what I find myself writing to myself on the page:
I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go
ahead and take it –I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t
need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after
your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me
” p.54
The quotations above shows that prayer is repeated several times in the novel, Stanton 1965 explains that in fiction, a symbol repeated several times
reminds us of some constant elements in a story‟s world. Therefore praying is
considered as a symbol in the novel.
3. Ketut Liyer, Wayan and Felipe
Bali is the last country in Gilbert‟s journey. There, Gilbert meets many new people who become her friends. Ketut Liyer, Wayan and Felipe are people
who close to Gilbert when she lives in Bali for about four months. She interacts most with them. Besides, Ketut Liyer is one of the reasons why she decides to
visit Bali. Those people are considered as a symbol because it is repeated many times in the novel as mentioned in the quotations below.
The first time she meets Ketut Liyer is when she visited Bali for the first time in few years ago. The time when she met Ketut Liyer, he showed her his
painting “It was an androgynous human finger, standing up, hands clasped in
prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flower.
There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart ” p.27
26
Therefore, when she visits Bali, the first person that she is looking for is Ketut Liyer. However, since Ketut Liyer is already old, he forgets about Gilbert,
and then she explains many times to him about who she is. “But I‟m Liz. I came
here asking for yo ur help once because I wanted to get closer to God” p.221
Since then, she visits Ketut‟s house every day to do everything that she can do together with Ketut and his surroundings “the only thing I have to do every day
is visit Ketut Liyer for few hours i n the afternoon, which is far short of a chore”
Gilbert, 2006: 234. Ketut also teaches her Balinese meditation when she told him that she often had a nightmare. He teaches her two different kinds of
meditation. The first meditation is the simple one. “He tells me that there are many ways to find God but most are too
complicated for Westerners, so he will teach me an easy meditation. Which goes, essentially, like this: sit in silence and smile. I love it.
He‟s laughing even as he‟s teaching it to me. Sit and smile. Perfect.”p.231
The second meditation is called Four Brother Meditation. He teaches this meditation to her because she says that she often gets a nightmare. He also
explains the meaning and the philosophy of the meditation. Gilbert is very comfortable with the meditation and feels safe.
“I rode my bicycle back home, pushing my happy body up the hills toward my house in the late afternoon sun. On my way through the forest, a big
male monkey dropped out of a tree right in front of me and bared his fangs
at me. I didn‟t even flinch. I said, “Back off, Jack–I got four brothers protecting my ass,” and I just rode right on by him.”p.253
In the other side,, Wayan is different from Ketut. Wayan is a traditional healer and she is younger than him. Wayan and Gilbert also become best friend as
she says “I stayed there in Wayan‟s shop for the next few hours, talking with my PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
27 new best friend about her trouble
s” p.255. Almost every day she visits her friend to talk about serious problems or just to talk about woman things and need, “so I
was hanging out in Wayan‟s shop again this morning, and she was trying to figure out how to make my hair grow faster and th
icker” p.263 The last person is Felipe, he is also mentioned several times in the novel as
Gilbert‟s new lover. “Now that we‟re together, I get to hear Felipe‟s version of how we
met, a delicious story I never tire of hearing –about how he saw me at
the party that night, standing with my back to him, and how I did not even need to turn my head and show him my face before he had
realized somewhere deep in his gut, “that is my woman. I will do anything to have that woman.” p.310
According to Kennedy and Gioia 2010 in a literary work, the storyteller often gives a particular emphasis to the symbol. It may be repeated throughout the
story or even supply the story with a title. Therefore, those three people are considered as the symbol because they are mentioned and repeated several times
in the novel as mentioned above.
B. The Symbol Reveal the Theme of the Novel
This analysis part consists of the discussion about how the symbols reveal the theme of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Based on the theoretical
framework presented, there is a relation between symbols and themes. Symbol can be one of the literary features that can help the reader to understand the story.
Thus, theme is the central idea and unifying concept of a story and it should cover all details in the story.
In addition, uniting the meaning of the symbols which are found in the novel help the writer to find the theme of the story. The complete idea of the story
