Carla feels happy as God’s Callgirl and also feels pleasure to be with her
clients. She appreciates her customers at least what she gets to know them during the short periods they spend together in such out of uncommon circumstances.
They certainly seemed appreciative of her too. From her vision of becoming God’s Callgirl, Carla shows that she can give something valuable by her work
Van Raay 321. These conditions point out that she can find the meaning of life at that time because happiness is a reward or an effect of the success of finding the
meaning of life. Frankl 34 states that happiness does not exist suddenly but it is an effect of meaning fulfilment from the will to meaning.
2. Carla’s Failure to Find the Meaning of Life
Carla tries to find the meaning of life continuously but she also finds failures in her struggles. The failures cause her feeling of meaningless or
existential frustration. She suffers from the sense of meaninglessness, emptiness, lost of the purpose in life, bored feeling, and apathy. According to Frankl 167-
171, this condition is termed as the existential vacuum that is caused by the existential frustration, which is a frustration of the will to meaning. Moreover, the
effect of meaningless experience, which is unsolved and continued, will cause noogenic neurosis. The noogenic neurosis is a mood disorder that can inhibit
one’s self-adaptation and achievement. The disorder is marked by boredom, emptiness, hopeless, lost of interest and initiative, even the meaningless life.
In this novel, Carla’s will to meaning is shown by willingness to be good child for her parents, to be a good nun for God, and to
be God’s Callgirl. Those
fails because her ways are not appropriate to obtain valuing processes that will enable someone to find the meaning of life.
Carla ’s failure to find the meaning of life makes her suffer from an
existential vacuum. The existential vacuum becomes an inhibiting factor for Carla’s self-adaptation and achievement so that she finds the meaningless life.
Meanwhile, Schultz 115 states that characteristics of healthy personalities are oriented toward the future, directed toward future goals and tasks. The failure of
finding the meaning of life can be analyzed as follows:
a. The Failure of Being a Good Child for her Parents
There is no doubt that Carla always tries to do the best for her parents, especially for her father. She feels meaningful when she can make her father
happy. Unfortunately, she loses the meaning of life later. Her struggle to be a good child for her parents can be seen when she promises to her father that she
will not tell anyone even the priest about what he has done to her. At first, she feels happy. Then, after knowing that confession in front of the priest is one of
way for sinful Catholics to get a release from a punishment, Carla feels that she has been sinful by keeping the secret from the priest. She knows that sinful people
will enter the hell when they die. It makes her afraid of death so that she begs the devil to help her and makes a deal with him. Unexpectedly, she feels she has hurt
God by making a deal with the devil. It causes guilty feeling so that makes Carla becomes a self-reproachful person. It proves that she cannot find the meaning of
life because she gets a guilty feeling as a reward Van Raay 21-22.
Carla does not find the meaning of life in this moment also because she does not have a freedom of will, one of the bases of Logotherapy. Frankl 157-
158 states people who have a freedom to take a stand on every condition they face must have responsibility. Here, on the limitations, people have the ability and
freedom to change their life condition in order to gain a more qualified life. Unfortunately, in this case, Carla does not have it. She is trapped in her self-
reproachful feeling. Furthermore, she is not able to change the condition because she has promised to her father for keeping the secret. She is determined by the
power out of herself, which in this case is the power of her father. It also lets her become an introverted person.
b. The Failure of Being a Good Nun for God
Carla’s will to meaning is also seen in her willingness to be a good nun for God. Unfortunately, Carla’s struggle to be a good Nun for God also fails later
when she finds a frustrated feeling as she cannot take a stand on some problems. She feels hurt when she is not allowed to learn to play the piano. Her superior is
afraid that Carla does not have any talent for music at all. Furthermore, when Carla wants to learn to drive, she is refused again. The refusal brings her to
desperate frustration Van Raay 234-235. She cannot take a stand on the conditions she faces. Self-pity beckons
seductively causes the hidden emotions to open slowly. Although her loyalty to the Society is intact, she does not have the Spirit of the Society any longer
because she feels refused. She gets a feeling of boredom there. Finally, she decides to leave the convent.
