Galingan, Mike Andrew H.

Philippine History (LITT1)

LITERARY ANALYSIS
FAITH, LOVE, TIME AND DR. LAZARO

Faith, love, time and Dr. Lazaro by Greg Brillantes is a short story that tells us
that there is our God that is sustaining us what we need in our life. Even if we forget
about Him, He is always there to guide us and He will not leave us.

The lost of his other child gave a big effect for Dr. Lazaro. He also loses his
love, time and his faith. He loses his love and time for his family because he
pursues his job by being a country doctor. Keeping busy all the time by helping
other people makes him to forgot about his son Ben because he do not entertain or
he does talk to him about his personal goal for his own life.

The first symbolism that I notice about is the Sacred Heart and the plaster
saints. It symbolizes that his wife and his son are religious persons. Even that his
family members are religious, he respect their faith to God. Sacred Heart is the
flaming heart shining with divine light and it is the representation of divine love for
the humanity.

The second symbolism that I notice is the darkness and the lights around
them when they are travelling. The darkness symbolizes the loss of faith while the
lights symbolizes as hope. Even that we lost our faith to God, there are still hopes
that we can still bring back our faith to Him.

The third symbolism that I notice is the coconut shell and the water. It
symbolizes baptism of a certain person. Baptism symbolizes that the person is
being welcome to the world of Christianity. This event in the story is the one that
convince Dr. Lazaro about the existence of God.

The fourth symbolism that I notice is the death of the baby of Esteban. It
symbolizes that even there are things that there are persons or things that we lost
in our life, life must go on. God is guiding and He knows what are the things that are
good to us so that we become a greater persons.

The last symbolism that I notice is the roar and light of the bus that blinded
Dr. Lazaro. It helps him to realize the things that Ben did to the baby of Esteban and
wake hin to reality. This is the time that he realizes that Ben should take the course
that he likes. This is also the time when he redeems his faith.

Even that there are problems that we are encountering in our life or we will
encounter in our future, let us always remember that there is our God that will help
us to cope up or to overcome our sufferings. Let us always remind ourselves that
there is no bigger problem than our God. There are situations that we will
encounter in our life that teaches us and make us realize that there is God. Wde
need to face Him and make Him the center of our life.