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the scope of myth studies are used as the basic theoretical understanding to the topic of the research.
Jung’s idea of archetypes is mainly derived from his book The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 1958 and from other scholars including Guerin
1992 and Feist-Feist 2009. Campbell theory of the universal structure of hero’s
journey or what he calls as The Monomyth is mainly derived from his book Hero with Thousand Faces 1949 2004 in which he traces the presentation of heroes
and their journey in wide-range of narratives around the world. Meanwhile, the conception of quest is acquired from scholars in myth studies.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is one of prominent stories that contain quest. The novel tells about the journey of an ordinary Andalusia shepherd boy in
achieving his goal through the quest. As a narrative, this story has the intrinsic elements
that present the structure of the hero’s journey. Hence, the archetype of the hero’s journey in this narrative can be seen through plot and setting.
Meanwhile, to identify the archetypes of hero’s journey in this narrative,
Christopher Vogler’s elaboration on Campbell’s theory of The Monomyth in which Vogler con
veys the mythic structure that contains twelve stages of hero’s journey is mainly used. The framework of thinking of this research can be seen
through a diagram as follow.
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Figure 1. Framework of Thinking
Christopher Vogler’s Mythic Structure
How are the archetypes of hero’s
journey presented in Paulo Coelho’s The
Alchemist? What the archetypes
of hero’s journey are presented in Paulo
Coelho’s The Alchemist?
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist
The Conception of Quest
Archetypal approach
The Intrinsic Elements of Story
Structuralism
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter deals with the steps to conduct this research. It begins with the discussion of the research design, followed by the object of the research, data
source, techniques of data collecting, techniques of data analysis, and data validity or trustwhorthines
A. The Research Design
The accuracy of using the research methods is essential to obtain a valid result on a research. In this research, the researcher utilized a descriptive
qualitative method as the method of the research and employed a content analysis as the technique or model of the research. The purposes of a descriptive
qualitative method are describing and explaining the object as well as to produce rich, in-depth, meaning of the object. Meanwhile, the purpose of a content
analysis model is investigating the data of the object in the form of texts, images, symbols, and so forth.
Vanderstoep and Johnston 2009: 164 state that the characteristic of qualitative research is to gain more insights into meaning and function of events.
They also state 2009: 7 that qualitative research produces a narrative or textual description of the phenomena under study. Unlike quantitative research, the
finding of qualitative research will not be in the form of statistic. The procedures of the qualitative research are by collecting, classifying, analyzing, and
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interpreting data. In this research, the researcher tried to discover the messages and the meaning embodied in the text by following the procedure of the
qualitative method. Krippendoff 2004: 11 states that content analysis is a kind of research
that concerns more on the characteristics and messages in the text as unity. However, content analysis does not only make the content of the message as its
object, but also associates the content with the symbolic conception in the realm of communication. Therefore, by using this technique in this research, an
objective, systematic, and relevant understanding of a given various message of the communication that the author presents in the text will be gained.
Thus by using descriptive qualitative method and content analysis technique, the researcher tried to describe or explain the archetype of
hero’s journe
y in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. It is hoped that content analysis fulfils the procedures of processing the data with the aim to give deeper knowledge to
the readers as the facts are presented. It is also hoped that descriptive qualitative is the most appropriate method due to the formulation of the problem.
B. Data Type
The data in this research are words, clauses, phrases, sentences, and discourses related to the
Archetypes of hero’s journey that are found in Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist. The researcher interpreted and analyzed the data
by employing relevant theories.
