Paulo Coelho’s Vision of Feminine Element and Emphasizing the Feminist Divinity Concept

Abstract

Actually, the feminine element is vital in Paulo Coelho’s literary forms which can be reverberated conspicuously as the part played in his life. He states that women have an important position and keep to gain a significant part in his life, and he said “my own life is ruled by feminine ability”. (Coelho: Confessions of a Pilgrim, 83). Two of his books are entitled with female names: Brida (1990) and Veronica Decides to Die (1998) where the female characters are essential, but in this study, the main concern will be about the feminist divinity concept in particular two novels; (The Witch of Portobello) and (By the River Piedra I Sat down and Wept, 1994), where Paulo Coelho emphasizes that there is a feminine part of God, which is named after the mother Goddess.

In addition to that, this paper refers briefly to Paulo Coelho’s vision of aspects of feminism and how he represents and employs the feminine elements in some of his novels like (Brida, The deviland Miss Pryme), and(Alchemist). That vision he expresses of women and what they depict within and outside of us can be noticed clearly in his books. In the two novels,(By Piedra I Sat Down and Wept) and (The Witch of Portobello), Coelho highlights the concept of feminist divinity (the feminine part of God) that seems not to be thought or believed by people at that time,so, this paper will examine this concept precisely in the two novels in order to find out how Coelho viewed and believed the feminine part of God and how he portrayed it through the protagonists of these two novels in the narration.