5 perspective from others. Veronika felt that life was meaningless. Veronika’s
negative perspective about life led her to a decision to commit suicide. On the morning of 11 November 1997, Veronika committed suicide by
swallowing four packs of sleeping pills, but her suicide attempt was failed. Veronika’s failure in committing suicide led her to an asylum called Villete. In
Villete, Veronika’s new environment, Dr. Igor told her that she only had few days to live because her heart had been damaged due to the overdose of sleeping pills.
Veronika started to feel afraid of her future life after knowing that she was still alive. Veronika was also afraid of her fate after knowing that she only had few
days to live. Then, she started to think about another way to end her life. Veronika asked Zedka to give her some more sleeping pills. However, Zedka could not give her
those pills. Since she could not get some more sleeping pills, Veronika decided to live her
life as other lunatics in Villete. In Villete, she did everything she had never done before such as playing a piano at night. In Villete, Veronika lived her life in a
different way from her previous life. Veronika built relations with the patients in Villete such as, Zedka, Mari, and Eduard and experienced a new life.
During the time of waiting for her death, Veronika tried to express herself and explored all her talents and potentialities. She played a piano at night. Veronika also
experienced some feelings such as love, hatred, and courage. Veronika fell in love with Eduard, a schizophrenic man. She experienced a new life which was totally
different from her previous life. Veronika lived in a new situation where she could
6 actualize herself without pretending to be someone else just to fulfill her mother dreams
and avoid from others’ judgments. The writer would like to explore through the content of the story to find out
Veronika’s characteristics and the meaning of her decision to commit suicide. In this study the writer will use some theories to support the analysis. Theories that will be
used in this study are theory of character, method of characterization, theory of motivation, and theory of psychoanalytical psychology. Psychological approach is
applied to see the deeper meaning of the novel.
1.2 Objectives of the study
The objective of this study is to see the meanings of Veronika’s decision to commit suicide as seen in Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die. To find out the
meanings of Veronika’s decision to commit suicide, the writer will focus on analyzing the characteristics and the psychology of Veronika, the main character of
Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die. The meanings of Veronika’s decision will be revealed in chapter IV of this study.
1.3 Problem formulation
There are two problem formulations of this study as the main points that will be analyzed in chapter IV. These two problem formulations are correlated; the first
7 problem formulation is linked to the second problem formulation. The meaning of
Veronika’s decision to commit suicide can be revealed after knowing Veronika’s characteristics. The problems of this study can be formulated as follows:
1 How is Veronika, the main character of Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to
Die, described in the novel? 2
What are the meanings of Veronika’s decision to commit suicide?
1.4 Definition of terms
The following part is the meaning of certain words used in the study. There are two terms to be explained in this part, they are suicide and true meaning. The
purpose of defining these two terms is to avoid misunderstanding in perceiving some important terms in this research.
1.4.1 Suicide
The meaning of suicide in this study refers to the definition of suicide in ADAM’s Illustrated Health Encyclopedia which was adapted from adam.about.com.
In ADAM’s Illustrated Health Encyclopedia, suicide is the act of deliberately taking ones own life. Suicidal behavior is any deliberate action with potentially life-
threatening consequences, such as taking a drug overdose or deliberately crashing a car. Suicidal behaviors almost always occur in people with depression, bipolar
8 disorder, schizophrenia, and alcohol dependence. People who attempt suicide are
often trying to get away from a life situation that seems impossible to deal with. Many who make a suicide attempt are seeking relief from: bad thoughts or feelings,
feeling ashamed, guilty, or like a burden to others, feeling like a victim, and feelings of rejection, loss, or loneliness.
1.4.2 True Meaning
The true meaning here is the extrinsic aspects of the literary works. The definition of meaning in this study refers the definition of meaning explained by
Audi. According to Audi 1999, “Meaning is the conventional, common, or standard sense of an expression, or
of a non-linguistic signal or symbol. Literal meaning is the non-figurative. Synonymy is the sameness of literal meaning. In another sense, meaning is
what a person intends to communicate by a particular utterance. Meaning means the extrinsic aspects in the literary works. It is not the literal meaning.
It is has two aspect, literal meaning or surface meaning and non6 literal meaning or deeper meaning” p. 545.
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter, the writer will explore some theoretical reviews in order to support the analysis. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section
provides a review on related theories. This section comprises the important concepts of characters and methods of characterization, theory of psychoanalytical psychology
and theory of motivation. These theories are used to help the writer in answering the problems in Coelho’s novel towards the reason of Veronoka as the main character
who commits suicide. The second section is dealing with theoretical framework. In this section the writer states the theories that are used to analyze Coelho’s Veronika
Decides to Die. In this part, the theories and reviews will be synthesized to make them operationally applicable to the problems. The third section deals with context of
the novel. The historical approach when the novel was written by Paulo Coelho.
2.1 Review of Related Theories
In this part the writer will provide some theories related to the topic of this study. They are theories of character, methods of characterization, theories of
psychoanalytical psychology and the theory of motivation. Those theories will be used to answer the problem formulations formulated in the previous chapter.
10
2.1.1 Theory of Character
Character is one of the most important elements in the literary works. According to Stanton 1965, “character is a person who does the action in a story”
p.17. Furthermore, Abrams 1981 explains that a character is “an individual who exists in a dramatic or narrative work and heshe has moral dispositional qualities that
can be seen from hisher dialogue and action; dialogue and action have important roles in understanding the characters” p. 20.
Milligan 1983, p. 155 states that there are two kinds of character in the fictional story: major character and minor character. A major character is the most
important character in a literary work. Heshe plays a very important role because everything heshe does becomes the content of the story. A major character becomes
the centre of the story because he endures problems, conflict, happiness, sorrow, etc. from hisher actions; through which the readers know the author’s message of the
story. The minor characters are characters that play less important role than major character does. Their appearance supports the main character to develop the story so
that they appear only in a certain setting. They do not endure the problem of the story.
2.1.2 Methods of Characterization
Characterization is the way the author characterize the characters. Characterization plays an important role in building the idea of a story. Rohrberger
