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story. From this fact, it can be infered that the archetypal structure of hero’s quest
is not used by certain narratives in which the major characters do not show the heroic quality.
The Heroic quality generally is shown in adventure and fantasy book like J. R. R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
The heroes in those book show a transformation from an ordinary man to be a brave and admirable one. The hero of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, is an ordinary
hobbit who is inheritted a ring Sauron’s ring by his cousin Bilbo and must
undertake the quest to bring the ring out of Shire. The hero of The Hunger Games, Katnis, is an ordinary girl who lives in the mines distric and recklesly undertakes
her sister’s position to play the deathly game. Both Frodo Baggins and Katniss Everdeen are able to deal with their fate to undergo their journeys, achieving the
goals and going back to their former lands to spread the goodness of their goal. Frodo and Katnis’ series of experiences presented in the novel are heroes’s
journey. Hero’s Journey is the quest’s pattern or structure that appears in myths or
ancient tales, story telling, drama, even modern literary works and films. It describes the typical adventure of the hero, whether it is a real physical adventure
or mind and spiritual one, The pattern is also called as mythic structure, for since the first story in the world emerged, the ideas in it have appeared and continously
exist across ages and countries. Campbell in Vogler, 2007: 4 argues that the theme of hero’s journey myth is universal that occurs in every cultures and times.
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He has discovered that so many stories include modern literary works, consciously or not, follow the ancient patterns of myths.
Campbell 2004: 28 articulates this recurent structure of the hero’s
journey as The Monomyth. It is the universal structure of the mythological adventure of the hero that represents the cycle of Separation- Initiation-Return.
Campbell 2004: 30 also argues that all forms of narratives involving the heroes ’
quests acquire universal structural pattern: The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is
magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation – initiation – return; which might be named the nuclear unit of the
monomyth. A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and
decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons of his fellowman.
From the quotation above can be infered that the heroes, mostly presented in simple and innocent individuals, are separated from his or her ordinary life and
must undergo certain tests to achieve their stage of initiation and then return as different individuals.
Vogler adapts Campbell ’s 17 stages of hero’s journey in his idea of mythic
structure. Vogler condenses the 17 stages down into 12 stages. Those hero’s
journey stages are included into the cycle of ordinary world - special world - ordinary world. Similar with Campbel
l, Vogler’s concept of the archetypes of hero’s journey is important to identify the purpose or the function of a hero and
his journey in a quest story. The atmosphere of the quest story is also experienced by Santiago, the
hero i n Paulo Coelho’s prominent quest story, The Alchemist. It is a narrative that
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urges the reader to see that the milieu of the text involves and incorporates archetype or mythical elements of hero’s journey. The Alchemist tells the story
about how an ordinary Andalusia shepherd boy, who abandons his f ather’s will of
directing him to become a priest, chooses to be a traveler. Because of his desire of traveling the world, he gets the quest to search for treasure that is hidden in the
Pyramid of Egypt. However, Santiago is reluctant to undertake the quest and he feels fear toward the unexpected trials ahead. He remains in his ordinary place
until a gipsy woman interprets his dream and an old man, Melchizedek, encourages him to take the journey.
This research intends to study the recurrent patterns or structures of the hero’s journey in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. This research tries to
demonstrate those archetypes of hero’s journey by looking at the chronological order of the events and the settings that
occur in the story related to the hero’s journey. This topic of the research is mainly generated by two consideration. First,
The Alchemist is a prominent story that contain quest and hero’s journey. It means
that this novel presents the archetypal structure in its narrative. Second, the study on archetypal patterns found in literary work will enrich the study of literary
works, especially about myth and archetype studies.
B. Research Focus
Discussing about the hero’s journey and its quest in a story, it couldn’t be
separated from involving mythic structure or archetypal story pattern. Although many stories vary in its settings, themes, genres, even in its goals, the form or the
rule of the basic patterns of their whole storyline are quite similar. Thus, the
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structure of a hero ’s journey in quest story like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist
needs to be understood further for some reasons. First, it is to determine what quest actually the hero is achieving, whether the quest is to look for treasure or to
learn the language of the world. Next, it is to encourage the fact that the storyline of this novel represents the universal patterns of all stories.
From the identification above, the research focuses on examining and exploring the narrative structure of this novel, and suggesting that the patterns of
The Alchemist ’s storyline follows the model of the archetypes of hero’s journey.
This research employs the idea of mythic structure that is identified by Christopher Vogler.
By considering the study on structuralism, the evidences regarding the archetypes
of hero’s journey as the narrative structures of The Alchemist are discovered and presented. This study is important because, as a literary method, it
argues that there must be a structure in every text. It concentrates and focuses more on the elements of narrative. The novel also has elements which cannot
stand alone. An element needs other element to produce a whole story. In other words, those elements influence each other. Thus, by using this literary method
for both discovering and presenting the findings, the discussion about the archetypal patterns that the hero takes on are also presented.
Based on the focus of the research above, the researcher formulates the following question:
1. What are the archetypes of hero’s journey presented in Paulo
Coelho’s The Alchemist?
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2. How are those archetypes of hero’s journey presented in the
novel?
C. Research Objectives
Considering the research questions mention above, the research is intended to:
1. describe the archetypes of hero’s journey that are presented in
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, and 2.
uncover how the novel presents those archetypes of hero’s journey.
D. Research Significance
This research, expectedly, will be beneficial for the following reasons. 1. Theoretically, this research may enrich research in literature, especially in the
field of archetypal study . Further, i t would expectedly heighten student’s interests
in studying myths and archetypes in literary works. Furthermore, to the future researchers, this research can provide baseline information on the use and the
aplication of structuralism in analyzing a literary work. 2. Practically, it is hoped that
the analysis of the archetypes of hero’s journey in this research can motivates readers in both academic and general to understand
how to read a quest story more critically. After reading the finding, the readers are expected to get the meaningful evidences and to have more interest in conducting
further research on the same field in the future.
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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter, which deals with literature review, is divided into four parts. The first part is theoretical descriptions that consist of Structuralism, Archetype
and Myth Studies, The Conception of Quest, Christopher Vogler ’s Mythic
Structure, and The Intrinsic elements of Narrative. The second part is the review of previous related research findings. The third part covers the historical
background of Paulo Coelho and his novel The Alchemist. The last part is conceptual framework which shows the mind map of how to conduct this
research.
A. Theoretical Descriptions
1. Structuralism
Structuralism emerged from linguistics which focus upon the patterns and functions of language, and how its meaning established and maintained.
According to Terence Hawkes 1978: 11 structuralism claims that things cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen in the context of the larger structures
which they are part of. For example, Barryin in his “structuralism summary analysis” states that one needs to determine the precise nature of the chicken if
they want to declare anything intelligent about eggs. It means that for examining or scrutinizing an object, it is needed to determine the precise and the essential
nature of every elements of that former object. Another example is given by Tyson 2006: 209:
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…you are not engaged in structuralist activity if you examine the physical structure of a building to discover if it is physically stable or aesthetically
pleasing. However, you are engaged in structuralist activity if you examine the physical structures of all the buildings built in urban America in 1850
to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition, for example, principles of mechanical construction or of artistic form. You are
also engaged in structuralist activity if you examine the structure of a single building to discover how its composition demonstrates the
underlying principles of a given structural system.
The example above means that in applying structuralism as a method analysis there are two ways. First way is by generating a structural system of
classification. The second way is by demonstrating that an individual item belongs to a particular structural class.
Structuralist criticism has not only been applied in linguistics but also in psychology, sociology, anthropology, mythology studies, and has been used to
identify all social and cultural phenomena. For, Structuralist criticism identifies the structures and the system of relationships between identity and meaning of its
items e.g. clothes, vehicles and signs e.g. words, images, symbols Guerin et al, 2005: 368-369.
Ferdinand de Saussure, a structural linguistics, states that the language system consists of La Langue and La Parole. La Langue means the language or
the system possessed and used by all members of a particular language community, whereas La Parole means the words or any specific application of La
Langue in speech or writing Eagleton, 1983: 97. In other words, Parole is the surface phenomena or the individual realization of the system in the form of
language while Langue is the social aspect of the language or structure that allows texts to make meaning. In this case, the structuralist doesn’t attempt to interpret
