Therefore, to see the understanding of feminine side of God the writer tries to provide an analysis from
Coelho‟s novel entitled By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
. This novel mentions Immaculate Conception, Virgin Mary, and the miracle of the Virgin which reveal the existence of Mother Mary who serves
the feminine side of God. There is a quotation found in this novel which is related to the above description as follows.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You didn‟t answer me.”… “I want to know anyway.”
Taking a deep breath, he led me to a corner of the room. “All of the great religions- including Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam- are masculine. Men
are in charge of the dogmas, men make the laws, and usually all priests are
men.” “Is that what the woman meant?”
He hesitated before he answered. “Yes. I have a different view of things: I believe in
the feminine side of God.” Coelho, 1996: 11. The above quotation shows that there is a debatable argument about the position
of women in a Church who do not have a chance to take the Church „role and God
is described as a man not a woman. When Mother Mary introduces a new paradigm of God, Catholics may learn the feminine side of God from her. The
writer chooses this novel as the object of the study because the feminine side of God is revealed through the experience of the character who realizes the existence
of Mother Mary. In other words, the writer analyzed the feminine side of God through a woman
‟s glasses. For this case, the writer argues with what Edward Said
as quoted in Sears‟s Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia that to learn the feminine experience
, women‟s point of view is the main subject to be analyzed because women can understand their feminine experience. It is stated as follows.
I mean simply that if you agree with Gramsci that an intellectual vocation is socially possible as well as desirable, it is an inadmissible contradiction
at the same time to build analyses of historical experience around exclusions, exclusions that stipulate, for instance, only women can
understand feminine experience, only Jews can understand Jewish suffering, only formerly colonial subjects can understand colonal
experience Sears, 1999: 9.
Coelho‟s novel tells the story of Pilar, a woman who learns her faith in God from her spriritual experience. Pilar is the main character in this novel and
from her point of view; the writer analyzes Pilar‟s experience in meeting other
character who influence her understanding in God. The male main character also plays an important role in this novel to reveal the feminine side of God. The writer
hypothesizes that Pilar applies her feminine experience to learn the feminine side of God. From that above explanation, it is said that Mother Mary with her
feminine side can understand God through her Son, Jesus. It also might be paralleled to Pilar with her feminine side who understands God through her
childhood friend. The writer also assumes that Coelho‟s By The River Piedra I Sat
Down and Wept seems to reveal a special meaning of the feminine side of God
through the appearance of Mother Mary, why the veneration of Virgin Mary becomes important or there is a reason figure of Mary influence
Pilar‟s lover. Therefore, the writer analyzes the feminine side of God based on characterization
of Pilar, how Pilar learns and experiences her journey in Catholic spirituality scope. The writer also analyzes feminine side of God which is revealed by
characterization of Pilar‟s lover. The writer assumes that the different backgorund
between Pilar and her lover influence their way to learn the feminine side of God. Every moment that they meet has special part in their heart and it recovers their
faith in God.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the topic of this study the feminine side of God learned by Pilar in Coelho‟s By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept, the writer needs two
problem formulations in analyzing this study as follows. 1.
How are Pilar and Pilar‟s lover described? 2.
How does the characterizations of Pilar and her lover reveal the feminine side of God?
C. Objectives of the Study
To answer the first question which is related to the intrinsic elements, character and characterization, firstly the writer finds out the characterization of
the character. Then, the writer needs to review a theory on character and characterization from the literary perspective in order to help the writer to analyze
the character and characterization. To find out the answer to the second question, the writer analyzes how the
feminine side of God is revealed by the characterization of Pilar and her lover. Therefore, the theory of the feminine side of God is needed in order to analyze the
feminine side of God which is revealed in the novel.
D. Definition of Terms
1. Feminine Side of God
The feminine side of God in this study means the maternity of God such as nurturing, caring, and compasionate character as is shown in the Marian tradition.
Maternity with its nurturing and warmth; unbounded compassion; power that protects, heals and liberates; all-embracing immanence; recreative
energy: thus is borne out the hypothesis that the Marian tradition is fruitful source of female imagery of God Donnelly, 1989: 54.
2. Characterization
Holman and Harmon in A Handbook of Literature states that characterization is the ways the author reveals the characters of imaginary person
in the story 1986: 81.This means that characterization is the way in which the author presents the characters.
9
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
In order to get deeper analysis on Paulo Coelho‟s By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept
, the writer needs to review opinions, criticisms or even analysis from other writers about this novel. Then, after doing the library research,
the writer finds that Coelho‟s novel entitled By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept
has been used by some students for their undergraduate thesis with using different point of view and aprroach. Later, the following review also presents
some criticisms and comments on this novel. By The River Piedra I sat Down And Wept
is a novel about a woman named Pilar who tries to find her true love. After eleven years, Pilar finally finds
her lover but she has to face the fact that the man who she loves is a missionary. Therefore, Pilar feels that her love is meaningless. That statement was stated in
Lusia Wikanita in her undergraduate thesis Plot And Symbols to Reveal the Me
ssage in Paulo Coelho’s By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept, she states that she feels love is meaningless knowing that the man enters the seminary. It
means that her love is indirectly refused. She blames God and releases her from religion she believes 2006: 47. From that quotation, it can be noted that Pilar,
the main character believes that love which she desires is only a dream. Besides, Pilar also cannot accept the fact that her lover is a missionary who only sacrifices
his life to God. Hence, Pilar blames God.
The other criticism commented by Susanti Kristianingrum in her undergraduate thesis A Psychological Study of Self Actualization through
Characterization of the Main Characters in
Paulo Coelho’s By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept
. By focusing on the main character named Pilar, Susanti Kristianingrum states that the recovery of her faith in God is the product of her
moral character 2005: 33. The above quotation shows that firstly Pilar blames God because she can not reach her love, but then Pilar recovers her faith in God
from her lover and it shows her moral character. Fernando Morais, the most important journalist in South America and the
one who makes a biography of Paulo Coelho through his novel A Warrior’s Life a
Biography of Paulo Coelho , states that
The image remained in his head for months, until he decided to use it as a representation of Good and Evil. With The Devil and Miss Prym, Coelho
was completing a trilogy that he called „And on the Seventh Day‟, which began with By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept 1994 and was
followed by Veronika 1998. According to him, „they are three books that desccribes a week in the life of normal people who suddenly find
themselves confronted by love, death and power‟ Morais, 2009: 538.
It implies that By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept is the first part of triology „And on the Seventh Day‟ which emphasizes complicated journey of
one‟s life in struggling a love. Although the journey takes a week, one may experience every moment that one meets in finding a love.
Another statement also added by Fernando Morais in his book A Warrior’s
Life a Biography of Paulo Coelho that according to Paulo, that book is about the
fear of loving and of total surrender that pursues humanity as though it were a form of original sin 2009: 514.
It implies that Coelho‟s By The River Piedra I
Sat Down And Wept emphasizes the obstacle of human being that sometimes is
trapped from a sin. Geraldo Galvão Ferraz
as quoted in Morais‟s A Warrior’s Life a Biography of Paulo Coelho
states that The critic Geraldo Galvão Ferraz, of the São Paulo Jornal da Trade,
branded By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept as „a poorly mixed
cooktail of mediocre mysticism, religion, and fiction, full of clichés and stereotypical characters who spend the greater part of their time giving
solemn speeches ‟. The author‟s approach to what he calls ‟the feminine
side of God‟ was ridiculed by another journalist as „a Paulo Coelho for girls‟ Morais, 2009: 517.
Ferraz‟s statement above criticizes the novel is a disapproving combination of religion and mysticism which shows stereotypical character. He argues that the
novel is an old cliche, it is seen from the way of man character , Pilar‟s lover
delivers his speech by giving an old fiction and religion. Another journalist also adds that „the feminine side of God‟ which is used by Coelho only represents the
feminine side to picture a woman. As Ferraz‟s criticisms shows his contradictory
statement that the novel By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept is a mediocre combination of mysticism and religion, the writer has different point of view of
certain religion scope revealed in this novel. Anna
Hassani also
states her
opinion in
bookreviews.nabou.comreviewsbytheriverpiedra.html that In this best-selling novel Coelho talks about a long-forgotten aspect of
God: His feminine side, the so-called the Goddess ”. The feminine face of
God has been, as Coelho explains, present in every religion on the face of the earth: paganism Great Mother, the ancient fertility goddess, Isis, the
Virgin Mary. This Goddess presented as generator of all life, is present in the love the two main characters feel for each other. It is as if Her presence
haunts their realtionship.
