130 REVIVING THE PASSION OF LIFE THROUGH SUICIDE OF VERONIKA’S CHARACTER IN PAULO COELHO’S VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE Fika Alfianti Aljannah State Islamic University Sunan Ampel Surabaya kalvya.notai@gmail.com Abstract: This article deals with psychological approach which concerns the analysis of reviving the passion of life through suicide of Veronika’s character in Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die. The study elaborates Alfred Adler’s individual psychology to analyze the process of reviving life’s passion happened in Veronika’s character. In addition, the formalist criticism involves in this thesis with some limitation to describe the Veronika’s character and to analyze her experiences in dealing with the suicide. The study aims to find out that the passion of life can be revived through the attempt of suicide. The method used in this thesis is qualitative, which is used by making the descriptive analysis through the actions and events that related to the identification process of reviving life’s passion done by Veronika in the novel. The study finds that there is an ability to revive the passion of life through the failure suicide in Veronika. The peoples’ innate for striving is driven Veronika to overcome her inferiority feelings. Moreover, the social interest influences Veronika to create the power of herself, so that can change her style of life in order to perceive the goals of life. Keyword: revival; passion of life; suicide; individual psychology 1. INTRODUCTION The issue of search the meaning of life is raised in one of Paulo Coelho’s work Veronika Decides to Die. Therefore, the material choses for this research. The novel has several interests by discussing about life and death; sane and insanity; reality and identity; and love. Veronika Decides to Die is the novel written by Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho. The novel was published by Harper Collins in 1999. In addition, Veronika Decides to Die is the result from Coelho’s promise. Paulo Coelho had once promised himself not only to write his experiences in mental hospital but also promised that he would not do his work until his parents passed away. He just does not want to make any suffer is again to his parents because of her son had been a patient in a mental hospital. As being known that he was confined to a mental hospital in Rio de mailto:kalvya.notai@gmail.com 131 Janeiro three times during teenager. Coelho is also the author of The Alchemist that was published in 1988 and it launched him as an international bestseller authors. (Cliff, 2015) The novel Veronika Decides to Diehas Veronika as the main character. Veronika appears in the novel as a young girl, 24 years old, who has everything in her life but commits to suicide. She decides by herself the day on November 11, 1997 to kill herself by taking too many sleeping pills. Then, instead of dying, Veronika finds herself awakes in Villete, a mental hospital. She feels increasingly uncertain, when a young doctor told her that the rest of her life leaving one week or more. Knowing that her attempt to suicide fails and tell that she was about dying less of a week, the fear comes to Veronika, and she is hopeless. In the Villete, she meets many people that make her think deeply. Therefore, she develops the personality by herself. Moreover, Veronika’s social interest also influences her to change her mind to set about life in order to overcome her inferior feelings. She starts to revive the motivation of her life and begins to build the goal in her life. Finally, she strives to survive and respect the meaning of her life. The case that happens to Veronika in the novel seems to have agreement with Adler’s individual psychology. By choosing a novel of Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die and Adler’s theory, this research deals with something fresh to analyze. Veronika Decides to Die is a novel that tells more about the ways of Veronika search the meaning of life than the case of her suicide or death. Coelho as the author clearly describes the way of thinking of Veronika’s character until she develops herself to achieve the meaning of life. So, it is interesting to analyze this novel through the individual psychology, to deeply know what would happen if someone is forced to face a precarious situation. Therefore, the article will discuss about reviving the passion of life through suicide of Veronika’s character in Paulo Coelho’s Veronika decides to die. 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Individual Psychology by Alfred Adler According to Adler, individual psychology is a science that attempts to understand the experiences and behavior of each person as an organized the entity. Through his theory, Adler argues that an understanding of human personality has possible only in light of an understanding of the person’s goals. People have a purpose in life – to attain perfection – and are motivated to strive toward attainment of this ideal. Adler proposes this movement toward perfection or completion, because of inferiority feelings – a continual struggle from minus to plus. Otherwise, people will try to escape themselves from the worst to better condition. Personal Awareness mentions that Adler seems to look ahead toward an individual’s betterment, instead of 132 considering everyone a prisoner of the past or biology (Warga, 1983, page 44). Individual psychology deals with everyone born with feelings of inferiority that may be increased by experiences such as parental rejection or over protection. Thus, everyone struggles constantly to overcome real or imagined deficiencies. Individual psychology holds that everyone begins life with physical deficiencies that activate feelings of inferiority – feelings that motivate a person to strive for either superiority or success. To Adler, people are born with weak, inferior bodies—a condition that leads to feelings of inferiority and a consequent dependence on other people. It means that inferiority is a normal condition to each person, and it is the source of human to strive. Human beings are continually developing themselves from minus to plus. On the contrary, few people feel difficult of how to compensate their inferiority feelings. People with an inability to overcome inferiority feelings intensivy them, leading to the development of an inferiority complex. People with an inferiority complex have a poor opinion of themselves and feel helpless and unable to cope with the demands of life. An inferiority complex can arise from three sources in childhood: organic inferiority, spoiling, and neglect. Individual psychology limits the striving for superiority to those people who strive for personal superiority over others and introduces the term striving for success to describe actions of people who are motivated by highly developed social interest. It means that from Adler’s theories, each individual is guided by a final goal. This striving for success or superiority may be frustrated by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or incompleteness arising from physical defects, low social status, pampering or neglect during childhood, or other causes encountered in the natural course of life. Thus, Adler suggests that people strive for success or superiority in an effort to perfect themselves, to make themselves complete or whole. All people develop their personality and strive for perfection in their own particular way. Feist and Feist (2009) writes that according to this theory, psychologically unhealthy individuals strive for personal superiority, whereas psychologically healthy people seek success for all humanity (page 70). It concludes that individual psychology emphasizes the nature of human being as social beings. Therefore, the greatest achievement of individual psychology is when people’s strive necessarily not only for their individual goals but also for their social interest. It has psychologically unhealthy whereas people strive by personal gain to be superiority. People with inferiority complex lead them to set the high but unrealistically future goals. These condition are named by superiority complex. It seems like of what explained in the book of Psychodynamic Theories that people who see themselves as having more than their share of physical deficiencies or who experience a pampered or neglected style of life overcompensate for these deficiencies and are likely to have exaggerated 133 feelings of inferiority, strive for personal gain, and set unrealistically high goals (Feist & Feist, 2009, page 96). Individual psychology leads the ideas on fictionalism that originates with Hans Vaihinger’s book The Philosophy of “As-If”. Vaihinger believes that fictions are ideas that have no real existence, yet they influence people as if they really existed. Yet, Feist also clompetely gives it with an example of a fiction that “Men are superior to women.” Although this notion is a fiction, many people, both men and women, act as if it were a reality (page 73). It means that people believe of what their perception, whether this notion is true or not. Indeed, this fiction seems to have influence people to life with this subjective perception’s view.From adopting this view, individual psychology believes that there is fictional goals which people go to achieve it. This fictional or imaginational goals will make them strive and consciously give a direction onto their behavior. Thus, toward in fictional finalism, the human’s style of life will be driven by. Individual psychology emphasizes that people born with the weakness, which is have the origins into giving a sense of social interest. It likes an infant, who depends on some people around him or her. It such as their parents. Infants intensively depend on their parents to could do anything of what they need. The parents’ character to contribute social interest of child is much needed. Mother is the first important person in giving the biggest influence of the child’s social environment. Toward his book, Feist & Feist (2009) write based on the theory comprehension that ideally, mother should have a genuine and deep rooted love for her child—a love that is centered on the child’s well-being, not on her own needs or wants. If mother favors the child over the father, her child may become pampered and spoiled. Conversely, if she favors her husband or society, the child will feel neglected and unloved (page 76). It means that mother should give the healthy love relationship of their child without any compulsion of what her want. Moreover, the healthy love relationship should be learned of the balance by true caring of the family and other people. In his theory, Adler believes that people are forward moving, motivated by future goals rather than by innate instincts or causal forces. These future goals are often rigid and unrealistic, but people’s personal freedom allows them to reshape their goals and thereby change their lives. It is because they want to change their lives, so they will learn new attitude. This attitude create what Adler’s call as style of life. It concludes that person develops a unique pattern of characteristics, behaviors, and habits, which Adler calls a distinctive character, or style of life. Basic style of life includes the dominant, getting, avoiding, and socially useful types. Basically, both person who strive for success or superiority has their own particular way to achieve the goals toward style of his life. This as the Adler calls creative power of the self. 134 The concept of the creative self is an outgrowth of Adler’s concern with the mechanistic implications of his style-of-life construct. He concludes that the concept of the creative self implies that people create their own personalities, by actively constructing them out of their experiences and heredities. It means that creative power of the self is the ability to create an appropriate style of life. This theory believed that the individual creates the style of life. Each person creates themselves, their personality, their character; these are all terms Adler uses interchangeably with style of life. Formalism: Character and Characterization This study sees the literary work as the literary itself, which has its own internal values. The study uses theory of character and characterization as the supporting theory. The theory of character and characterization is a part of the formalism. Formalism, sometimes called new criticism (even though it has been around a long time), involves the careful analysis of a literary text’s craft. It means that formalism is one of the critical approaches and mainly concern in analyzing the literature text. Formalism is one of literary critical approaches that contributes to interpret a literary work from the intrinsic values. Formalists see the literary work as an object in its own right. Thus, they tend to devote their attention to its intrinsic nature, concentrating their analyses on the interplay and relationships between the text’s essential verbal elements. It means that formalism focuses the analysis on the formal aspect and intrinsic values that shapes a literary work. The intrinsic values means as seem as the elements of literature text, like characters, plot, or theme. 3. FINDINGS The Experiences of Veronika in Dealing with her Suicide As the main character, Veronika is a round and dynamic character. Kennedy (1983) said that round characters, present us with more facets – that is, their authors portray them in greater depth and in more generous detail. Such a round character may appear to us only as he appears to the other characters in the story. If their views of him differ, we will see him from more than one side (page 46). For instance, it means that round characters are complex, have more than one side capability to think or react. It is like a real person in the real life. Veronika appeared to be round character in the novel. And she was shocked by how quickly she could change her mind, since only moments before she had thought exactly the opposite (Coelho, 1998, page 6). She had sometimes thought: If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps… 135 But the reply was always the same: There is no perhaps, because there is no choice. And her inner peace returned, because everything had already been decided (Coelho, 1998, page 46). It shows that Veronika is a round character in the Coelho’s novel Veronika Decides to Die. Both of the quotations describe how fast Veronika changes her mind just like real person in the real life could be. She has a complex and multifaceted character. In addition, Paulo Coelho as the author of Veronika Decides to Die also gives an image of Veronika as a dynamic character. Francis Bacon writes in his article that dynamic character is when a character undergoes a change in values, beliefs, or behaviors as a result of his/her experiences (page 3). It means that dynamic character grows and progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of the story. Moreover, Veronika, then, exhibits some kinds of change – of attitude, purpose, behavior, as the story progresses. Veronika is a developing character who changes and grows to a new awareness of her life as the result of her experiences. Paulo Coelho as the author of the novel Veronika Decides to Die uses the direct and indirect style to reveal the characterization of Veronika. The explanations above describes the portrayal of Veronika in the novel. The next analysis on how Veronika deals with her suicide is devided into five points. The first point discusses about the failure of Veronika’s suicide. Because of her failure, Veronika has been rescued and hospitalized to the Villete. “I’m joking, it’s not really hell” the voice went on. “It’s worse than hell, not that I’ve ever actually been there. You’re in Villete” (Coelho, 1998, page 11) Despite the pain and the choking feeling, Veronika realized at once what had happened. She had tried to kill herself, and someone had arrived on time to save her. It could have been one of the nuns, a friend who had decided to drop by unannounced, someone delivering something she had forgotten she had ordered. The fact is that she had survived, and she was in Villete (Coelho, 1998, page 11-12). In the Villete, she forces to face that her heart has irreversibly damage and her life is counted by five or a week left. This explanation become the second point entitled waiting to the death. A doctor tells that Veronika’s life is five or one week left. The doctor says that her heart has damage. It is because four packs of sleeping pills she drinks before effecting to her heart, and makes it is irreversibly broken. The medicine cannot help to heal her heart. “Your heart was irreversibly damaged, and soon it will stop beating altogether.” 136 “What does that mean?” she asked, frightened. “If your heart stops beating, that means only one thing, death. I don’t know what your religious beliefs are, but—” “When will my heart stop beating?” asked Veronika, interrupting him. “Within five days, a week at most.” (Coelho, 1998, page 28-29) Then, the third point contains of Veronika’s feelings toward her comes to the Villete. Since the failure to commit suicide, Veronika awakes in the Villete and tells that her life within five days or a week left. It makes Veronika experience the feelings that she never feels or pushes the feeling off from herself before. After analyzing the main data, this study categorizes Veronika’s feelings into three points, they are: fearful, regret, and self- defenses and self-awareness. During the night, however, she began to feel afraid. It was one thing to die quickly after taking some pills; it was quite another to wait five days or a week for death to come, when she had already been through so much (Coelho, 1998, page 30). The quotation above describes that Veronika is afraid of the death to come, although at the beginning she acts to be strong when a young doctor tells her worst condition, as of what written in the previous part. Veronika gave herself up to the experience; she stared at the rose, saw who she was, liked what she saw, and felt only regret that she had been so hasty (Coelho, 1998, page 103). Regret is another crucial feeling happened on Veronika in the Villete. This feeling appears for several time after Veronika had mused with herself. Besides, this feeling has spur Veronika to begin fighting for her life. As explained before in the beginning of this chapter, there are many aggressions that Veronika made by herself. All of her aggressions are uses to defen herself. The first self-defense appears when she acts to be strong to young doctor who tells that she has not have long time to live because of some incurable heart problems. Later on, the self-defenses done by Veronika slowly change to be a self-awareness. It can be seen from Veronika’s fear of the death, while she acts to be strong in front of the young doctor. The fourth point is about the experience of Veronika in meeting with the other patients and makes good relationship with them.Veronika meets Zedka, Eduard, and Mari in the Villete. Zedka is the first person in the Villete that Veronika meets with, after her thought to ignore Zedka’s voice. She helps Veronika to find the meaning of being crazy. Eduard is the second person 137 that Veronika meets with, although in implied way. Because it happens when Veronika plays the piano for the first time in Villete. It is known that Eduard has a special relationship with Veronika. He always asks Veronika to play piano at night. Another patient that Veronika meets is Mari. Mari is the one who has been affected by Veronika’s arrival in the hospital. Mari rethinks about her existence in the Villete. She imagines herself as if she were in Veronika’s position who knows that the death is yet to come. The young woman’s case, though, was dramatic because she was so young and because she now wanted to live again— something they all knew to be impossible. Some people asked themselves, what if that happened to me? I do have a chance to live. Am I making good use of it? Some were not bothered with finding an answer; they had long ago given up and now formed part of a world in which neither life nor death, space or time, existed. Others, however, were being forced to think hard, and Mari was one of them (Coelho, 1998, page 112). The last point is about Veronika’s experiences of heart attack.The doctor tells to Veronika that her heart is irreversibly damage. It makes Veronika get heart attack many times on her whole days in the Villete. The heart attack comes to her unpredictably, although she does not know what is precisely to notice of this disease. She just feels sick in her heart and difficult to take a breath. Sometimes, she feels dizzy and queasy. The very moment she thought this, she noticed a sharp pain in her chest, and her arm went numb. Veronika felt her head spinning. A heart attack! (Coelho, 1998, page 81). Before Veronika went to sleep, a nurse always appeared with medication. All the other women took pills; Veronika was the only one who was given an injection. She never complained; she just wanted to know why she was given so many sedatives, since she had never had any problems sleeping. They explained that the injection was not a sedative but medication for her heart (Coelho 46). Veronika is the only patient who always gets an injection before sleeping. The nurse tells that it is for her heart. Later, it is known that the injections that Veronika receives before sleeping is not sedative anymore. It is a drug known as Fenotal. It is used to give a stimulation after a heart attack. Dr. Igor is the only one who knows that the failed suicides tend to repeat the attempt eventually. Therefore, he deliberately gives the fenotal to Veronika for a week. He wants Veronika to be aware of death so that she will 138 obviously review the meaning of her own life. Then, Veronika feels frightened for the first time when the doctor told that her life is less than five days or a week. Her fear is appearent when the stimulation effect of heart attack occurred. Indeed, by having time to think of death, Veronika has remarked the process to revive her passion in life. Using a drug known as Fenotal, he had managed to simulate the effects of heart attacks. For a week she had received injections of the drug, and she must have been very frightened, because she had time to think about death and to review her own life. In that way, according to Dr. Igor’s thesis (the final chapter of his work would be entitled “An Awareness of Death Encourages Us to Live More Intensely’) the girl had gone on to eliminate Vitriol completely from her organism, and would quite possibly never repeat her attempt at suicide (Coelho, 1998, page 208). The Veronika’s Process to Revive Her Passion of Life Seen from Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology This section, divided into five points relates to Veronika’s process of reviving the passion of life. The first point analyzes the feelings of inferiority experienced by Veronika. In this point, the study tries to explain two of Veronika’s feelings of inferiority. Veronika’s experiences when she commits suicide signify that she has the feelings of inferiority. When she knows that her days are just the same day bay day, she thinks that her life has been boring and has no meaning. She thinks of the point to stay alive if every day just the same. No one knows of what will happen in the future and Veronika acts as if she had known what would happen. She was even happier that she would not have to go on seeing those same things for another thirty, forty, or fifty years, because they would lose all their originality and be transformed into the tragedy of a life in which everything repeats itself and where one day is exactly like another (Coelho, 1998, page 10). In this case, Veronika experiences of what individual psychology called inferiority complex. People with inferiority complex have a poor opinion of themselves and feel helpless and unable to cope with the demands of life. Veronika has a poor opinion of herself. She thinks that her life is meaningless and she feels helpless with everything that happens around her. In addition to inferiority feeling, Veronika also experiences fearful of the death. This fearful feeling increases steadily whenever the heart attack comes to her. It demands Veronika to overcome the inferiority feeling. 139 The second point discusses both Veronika’s struggle for success and superiority. The case of suicide happens to Veronika as part of superiority complex. People who see themselves as having more than their share of physical deficiencies or who experience a pampered or neglected style of life overcompensate for these deficiencies and are likely to have exaggerated feelings of inferiority, strive for personal gain, and set unrealistically high goals (Feist & Feist, 2009, page 96). Veronika is a person with neglecting experience and inferiority complex. It leads her to set the high but unrealistic future goals. At twenty-four, having experienced everything she could experience—and that was no small achievement—Veronika was almost certain that everything ended with death. That is why she had chosen suicide: freedom at last. Eternal oblivion (Coelho, 1998, page 8). Veronika begins to strive for success when she feels regretful of her decision to commit suicide. Once, her desire to alive comes, but she pushed it away and thinks that everything has been decided. She always does the same thing every time her desire of live comes. A faint desire to live seemed about to surface, but Veronika determinedly pushed it away (Coelho, 1998, page 40). Veronika also marks her beginning to strive for success when she is interested in playing piano again. It is the biggest one she has been dreamed for a long time ago. It is the most of her want, which is buried since her mother rejects her wants. Then, finally, she can bring her want up from the deepest of her heart and soul. In the last days of her life, she had finally realized her grand dream: to play with heart and soul, for as long as she wanted and whenever the mood took her. It didn’t matter to her that her only audience was a young schizophrenic; he seemed to understand the music, and that was what mattered (Coelho, 1998, page 113). From this one out, it can be realized that Veronika begins striving for herself not only for her individual goals but also for her social interest. Therefore, it is concluded that Veronika strives for success. She becomes psychologically healthy, and motivated to do something for social interests. Then, the third point analyzes Veronika’s fictional finalism. It examines of how Veronika sees the life before committing to suicide until she revives her goal of life. Individual psychology believes that people who strive for 140 personal superiority or success to attain completion always driven by their future goals. Their expectation to the future has shaped by subjective perception. Individual psychology adopts the ideas on fictionalism that originates from Hans Vaihinger’s book The Philosophy of “As-If”. Vaihinger believes that fictions are ideas that have no real existence, yet they influence people as if they really existed (Feist & Feist, 2009, page 73). In other words, the truth is just a matter of perspective. After the incident with the Fraternity, she had sometimes thought:If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps… But the reply was always the same: There is no perhaps, because there is no choice. And her inner peace returned, because everything had already been decided (Coelho, 1998, page 46). Veronika seems to thinks about her chance to be making a decision before committing to suicide. Unfortunately, she moves backward with her notion that there is no choice and everything already been decided. Although the notion is a fiction, which is not have the real existence, but Veronika believes in that. Whether the notion is true or not, she believes in her perception. It makes the fiction seems to have influence on her life with this subjective perception. Later, this study explains the stage of social interest that happens in Veronika’s self. The stage of social interest in Veronika’s lifes happens when she decides to make friends with another patient named Zedka. Although she thinks that she does not want to meet her for the first time because one of her wants is to be died and leaves Villete soon. Continually, she develops herself to be interested in social life. She also has improve herself after talking with Mari. She does not lock herself anymore like a coward and worry about her dignity. She is not afraid to be different from other people or to be inappropriate person. She freely expresses herself as she wants to be, does not think and worry about what other people think of her. For a moment she considered ignoring the voice: She didn’t want to make friends, to develop a social circle, to create allies for a great mass revolt. She had only one fixed idea: death. If she really couldn’t escape, she would find some way to kill herself right there, as soon as possible (Coelho, 1998, page 32). 141 Her only option was to keep away from everything and everyone, to try to be in every way as she had been before, to obey Villete’s rules and regulations (Coelho, 1998, page 46). “I don’t want to see her. I’ve cut all my links with the outside world.” (Coelho, 1998, page 81) Three quotations above describes the Veronika’s lack of social interest. The first quotation happens for the first time when she considers to make relationship with Zedka. Finally, she decides to meet Zedka. The second quotation occurs after the tragedy of slapping the old man. Veronika has sufficient time to move backward by keeping away from anything and everyone. The last quotation is from Veronika’s utterances answering the nurse when she tells her that her mother came. Therefore, all quotations implies that Veronika has the lack of social interest at the beginning of her arrival in the Villete. In the Villete, Veronika meets some mental patients, they are: Zedka, Eduard, and Mari. They had been affected by Veronika’s arrival in the Villete. Towards Veronika’s case, they realizes of how important the life was, when they have a chance to live. On the other hand, the inmates have influenced Veronika. Zedka helps Veronika to know the meaning of crazy. She talks too much about the sense of insanity. It makes Veronika lose her bad assumption of a place full with mentally ill patients. Another patient that Veronika met is Eduard. Eduard is the schizophrenic admired Veronika’s talent in playing piano. Later on, Eduard realizes that he falls in love with Veronika, although Veronika has already felt the feeling to Eduard. Finally, Veronika recognizes the biggest thing she wants is playing piano with her soul through the rest of her life, although her audience is only Eduard. Playing piano becomes the basic reason for Veronika to find her passion in life. She also realizes that she wants to see Eduard before she dies. “Don’t be afraid. Today I asked Dr. Igor for permission to leave here and to choose a place where I can close my eyes forever. But when I saw you being held down by the nurses, I realized what it was I wanted to be looking at when I left this world: your face. And I decided not to leave” (Coelho, 1998, page 193). Once again, meeting Eduard is marked of Veronika’s biggest social interest ever in her life. However, she finally decides to die in front of Eduard. She also tells Eduard that she loves him. They escape from the Villete together in order to grant the last of Veronika’s wants. The last patient that Veronika met is Mari. The interaction between Mari and Veronika, hence, helps her to be the bravest person in the world without 142 worrying what other people think. All interactions that Veronika did with the other inmates signify her social interests seen from individual psychology. The last point of this discussion is about the success of Veronika to build her style of life and creative power. The inner self of Veronika remarks her style of life and her creative power. She has the power to change her mind about life since her arrival in the Villete. It begins from she slapping the old man – the members of the Fraternity. Then, it continues when she cries and regrets of what she decided in the front of the nurse. Villete makes her thinks that it is free to act and think, because it is a mental asylum, and the insane people cannot be a judge anymore of what they behave. “A long time ago, when I was just a child, and my mother was forcing me to learn the piano, I said to myself that I would only be able to play it well when I was in love. Last night, for the first time in my life, I felt the notes leaving my fingers as if I had no control over what I was doing. A force was guiding me, constructing melodies and chords that I never even knew I could play. I gave myself to the piano because I had just given myself to this man, without him even touching a hair o’ my head. I was not myself yesterday, not when I gave myself over to sex or when I played the piano. And yet I think I was myself.” Veronika shook her head. “Nothing I’m saying makes any sense.” (Coelho, 1998, page 162) “You’ve got nothing to lose. Many people don’t allow themselves to love, precisely because of that, because there are a lot of things at risk, a lot of future and a lot of past. In your case, there is only the present.” (Coelho, 1998, page 162) The quotation describes that Veronika realizes a power innate from herself. The creative power which gives her much sense. A strange sense that she almost cannot identify as herself. Veronika tells this feeling to Zedka at the time she waiting of Eduard’s awake from ECT treatment. She feels the feeling when she has play a piano after joining the Sufi treatment. Otherwise, Zedka also tells to Veronika that she has nothing to lose. Implicitly, Zedka suggests her to only enjoy the present in spite of the past or future. Furthermore, Veronika applies the Zedka’s suggest when she escaped Villete with Eduard. She does not any mention and talk either past or future. Eduard and Veronika chose the most expensive restaurant in Ljubljana, ordered the finest dishes, and got drunk on three bottles of 1988 wine, one of the best vintages of the century. During supper they did not once mention Villete or the past or the future (Coelho 200). 143 The end of the story shows that Veronika escapes from Villete with Eduard without knowing what is the truth happen on herself. In fact, she does not know that her heart is rightly health. Nothing curiously damaged of her heart. She does not know that the heart attack happened before is just counterfeit from the drug known as fenotal. Therefore, by unknowing the truth, Veronika, will be thought that every day is miracle because the death not come to pick her. Hence, Veronika will think that every day is her last day to live. By adopting that each day is a crucial, she will develops her style of life as well as every day is a miracle. She would consider each day a miracle—which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences (Coelho, 1998, page 209). Each action that Veronika did out of her normal behavior is creative power. It comes from the innate self of Veronika as a human being. Individual psychology believes that innate capacity of people is flexibility toward their problem. Anything occurs in her life because she wants it to happens. Moreover, by thinking that each day is a miracle, Veronika develops her style of life to be psychologically healthy person. 4. CONCLUSION The analysis shows that Veronika, as the main, round, and dynamic character, experiences many different things in her life when she committes suicide. Those new different experiences begin when her committed to suicide fails. Because of her failure in committing suicide, she is hospitalized in a mental asylum named Villete. In the Villete, the doctor tells Veronika that her heart is damaged because the pills she has swallow in order to commit suicide. The doctor also says that Veronika’s life is less than a week. She feels fearful, regretful, and creates the self-defenses that soon always becomes the feeling of her self-awareness. She also meets the other inmates: they are Zedka, Eduard, and Mari. Each of them unconsciously help Veronika to rethink of her meaning life. Later on, Veronika falls in love to Eduard. Moreover, the sense of heart attack occurs in Veronika makes her to act free without any consideration of peoples’ opinion toward herself. Besides, Veronika’s process of reviving the life’s passion seen from Alfred Adler’s individual psychology explain about Veronika’s inferiority feelings, strives for success and superiority, fictional finalism, social interest, style of life and creative self. However, suicide is the result of Veronika’s unrealistically high goal that driven from her inferiority complex. The result of this study shows that there is an ability to revive the life’s passion through a suicide experience. By forcing to face the crucial situation 144 of waiting the death, Veronika becomes aware of life. She succeeds to revive her life’s passion through the failure of her suicide. 5. REFERENCES Adler, A. (1955). The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul LTD. Cliff, D. Biography of Paulo Coelho. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/the-alchemist/paulo-coelho- biography. 23 March 2015. Web. 22 July 2015. Coelho, P. (1998). Veronika Decides to Die. New York: Harper Torch. Feist, J. and Gregory J. F. (2009). Theories of Personality 7 th Edition. United States of America: The McGraw-Hill Companies, inc. Kennedy, X. J. (1983). An Introduction to Fiction 3 rd Edition. Boston: Little Brown and Company. Tyson, L. (2006). Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide 2 nd Edition. USA, New York: Routledge. Pdf. Warga, R. G. (1983). Personal Awareness: a Psychology of Adjustment 3 rd edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/the-alchemist/paulo-coelho-biography http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/the-alchemist/paulo-coelho-biography