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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methods of the study to solve the problems formulated in chapter I. This chapter consists of three main points to discuss. The first
point is about the object of this study, which provides the information related to the novel. The second point is approach of the study, which presents the information
about the approach used in analyzing the novel. The last point is the method of the study, which informs the steps in conducting this study.
3.1 Object of the Study
The object of the study is Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die. Paulo Coelho is also the author of the best seller The Alchemist. This novel was translated
from Portuguese to English by Margaret Jull Costa and published in 1999 in the United States of America by Harper Collins Publisher Inc. New York. This novel
consists of 29 sections and 210 pages long. This novel was firstly published in Portuguese in 1999. Veronika Decides to Die is a novel written by a Brazilian
author named Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho who was born on August 20, 1946, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is an author who likes to use his personal experience in
writing a literary work.
26 Veronika Decides to Die is one of his novels that he wrote based on her
personal experience when he was a young man and he was sent three times to a mental hospital by his parents because he wanted to be a writer. Through the life
of the main character of the novel entitled Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho reveals his personal experience. Paulo Coelho created a fictional character named
Veronika who decides to commit suicide and who feels powerless to change anything.
There are five major characters of this novel who play great roles. Veronika is the main character; she is the center of the story. The other characters are Zedka who
suffers from depression, Mari who suffers from panic attack and Eduard, a schizophrenic man with whom Veronika is falling in love. The last character is
Dr.Igor, who believes that the cause of insanity is Vitriol, a poison which the body produces and Veronika is becoming the object of his experiment.
The major character that will be analyzed in this study is Veronika, but the writer also regards other characters. However, the discussion on Veronika’s
characteristics cannot be separated from the other characters since they are play role in influencing Veronika’s personality.
3.2 Approach of the Study
This study uses a psychological approach as one of the Critical Approaches— introduced by Rohrberger and Woods, Jr. in their work Reading and Writing About
