Overcoming Trials and Tribulations by Faith and Love: Elijah as a Reluctant Prophet in Paulo Coelho’s The Fifth Mountain
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Abstract
Faith plays a very important role in someone’s life. Dealing with hard situation, people should keep their faith in God as the Supreme power and earn the positive value like love as the motivation of life. As people we should not lose our faith as everything in this world will not happen just in an instance, which according to Fowler: “Faith is very fundamental in someone’s life”. Inevitably, in real life there are so many people who dealt with failures and lost but still they remain strong and survive. By earning the growing of faith and love of God, people will choose to keep struggling with positive thinking and find the way out of the commotion. The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho is a retelling of the biblical story of a 23 year old prophet (Elijah) who is projected as the reluctant protagonist and also acts as a representation of human being. Elijah is made to flee his home and his country to face an endless stream of trials. He is one of the great prophets in the Old Testament. He is the only prophet who is not dead, but instead carried by chariots of fire into heaven. He finds refuge and love, only to have his dreams defeated emotionally. He not only loses his body, his earthly love, but his faith is shaken and he doubts the existence of God. Therefore, related to the topic above, this paper will bring forward how Paulo Coelho turn Elijah’s trials into an inspiring story which brings out the universal themes of how faith and love can triumph over suffering.
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