Quest for Spirituality in Coelho’s Brida

Abstract

With the implementation of the theoretical modality of spirituality the present research focuses on the physical journey of the protagonist resulted in the spiritual journey for the quest of the knowledge. The spiritual journey in the novel results when the protagonist, in search of the knowledge, happens to learn the tradition of the sun and the tradition of the moon that finally makes her witch. Brida is the story of a young girl who wants to learn magic. Simple as it may sound, there is more to her quest than she realizes. She seeks out Magnus, the master, to learn magic but she must overcome her fears and learn to have faith in the protective presence of spirit of Universe before she can start learning magic. Brida is about the spiritual journey of a young woman in pursuit of fulfillment of her destiny and in search of her soul mate, but along the way; it touches various other spiritual premises. Each soul possesses a free will and under no circumstances free will of any person is to be interfered with. Those who do that are condemned to long spells of loneliness. At times, Magnus is tempted to reveal to Brida that she is his soul mate but he resists his urge to that as he is already leading a lonely life for using magic to banish another man from the life of Wicca, his onetime lover. The author extensively talks about the fear of making mistakes and failure which impede our learning. Brida is young and this fear of failure stops her from sticking to any one field of learning until she overcomes her doubts about her own abilities. This is true to most people as we all are constantly plagued by doubt whether we are good enough for following our dreams, to achieve what we want to. But Cohelo is of the opinion that constant doubt and courage to overcome it is the path to learn and grow.