eleven years they are seperated. Unexpectedly, she has to accept that her lover has grown into a missionaire and a devotee of Immaculate Conception.
Pilar’s spiritual experience begins when the man asks Pilar to accompany him in a
conference that he organized during a week. Every moment in their journey teaches Pilar about different side of God which is called a feminine side of God.
On the other hand, the reunion between Pilar and the man places the man in a dilemma, between serving people in his life time as a missionaire or living with
Pilar. On the bank of the river Piedra, Pilar memorizes her experiences in
meeting the man and writes them in a handwriting. She writes all her feelings. At the end, on the bank of the river Piedra a final decision is made by Pilar and her
lover, the truth which reflects their deepest feeling.
B. Approach of the Study
In this study the writer uses moral philosophical approach to reveal the feminine side of God. According to Guerin in A Handbook of Critical Approaches
to Literature , the moral philosophical criticism concerns on what is taught in the
literary work itself. It is a critic which educates the reader to think critically in moral teaching.
The important thing is the moral or philosophical teaching. On its highest plane this is not superficially didactic, though it may at first seem so. In the
larger sense, all great literature teaches. The critic who employs the moral- philosophical approach insists on ascertaining and stating what is taught. If
the work is in any degree significant or intelligible, this meaning will be there Guerin, 2011: 62.
Further, Guerin 2011: 62 also stated that moral philosophical emphasizes on getting at the total meaning of a literary work when the work seems to call for
them. Therefore, this criticism is used to find out the values of life which exist in the literary work.
This criticism is chosen to analyze Coelho’s By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept
in order to see what are the feminine sides of God which are revealed in this novel. Since moral philosophical approach more focus on what is
taught in a literary work, here the writer emphasizes what are the feminine sides which are learned by Pilar from her lover.
C. Method of the Study
The writer was doing the library research. In the first step, the writer read the whole story of this novel. In reading the story, the writer tried to identify the
important intrinsic element in the novel. The writer found that character and characterization were the intrinsic elements to be analyzed. Those intrinsic
elements were related to the title of the study which analyzed about the character. After the writer found the intrinsic element which was used as the first problem
formulation, the writer found the second problem formulation which was related to the feminine side of God.
Then, the writer used additional sources in order to solve the problem formulation which were stated. The writer used Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E.
Jacobs ’ book entitled Fiction An Introduction to Reading and Writing, Second
Edition to explain what character is. Other sources was from Murphy in his book
Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English Poetry and Novels for Overseas Students
to help the writer in order to analyze the characterization of the character. In this study, the writer used moral philosophical approach, the writer
used A handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature by Wilfred L. Guerin. To analyze the second problem formulation, the writer used theory from George
Brantl’s book entitled Catholicism and Doris Donnnelly’s book entitled Mary, Woman of Nazareth Biblical and Theological Perspective
.
In conducting the analysis, the writer began with the analysis of the
character. That first analysis used the theory on character and charcterization that was mentioned above as the guidance to answer the first problem formualtion.
Then, the writer went to the second part of the analysis which dealed with feminine side of God learned by Pilar and her lover. The theory of the feminine
side of God was used as the hedges of the femine side of God that reflected in the novel. In this part, the writer tried to relate how the characters applied the
feminine side of God and what the other chararter learn from that teaching. After the analysis was finished, the writer concluded all discussions in a form of
paragraph. The conclusion covered the first analysis and the second analysis.
