Newborn Country Historical Background

23 inhabitants are insane. There are people who chose to stay in the asylum because they perceive the mental asylum as a comfortable place to reside in addition to the freedom it offers. The novel unfolds the story of twenty-four-years-old Slovenian woman named Veronika who seems to have a perfect life. She is surrounded by everything a young woman could wish for. She is young and beautiful. She has many gorgeous boyfriends, a pleasing job, and a family. However, there is a constant emptiness inside of Veronika. Consequently, on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die. She takes a handful of sleeping pills, expecting to beautifully rest in peace. Veronika’s suicide attempt fails. As a result, Veronika is considered crazy by her mother. Thus her mother sends Veronika to a local mental asylum. As Veronika wakes up at Villete, she finds out that she has not succeeded in achieving her goal to die. Although the overdose sleeping pills do not kill her, those pills bring her an irreversible damage to the heart. Only in the mercy of days, Veronika shall live. The story goes on with Veronika endures about a week of self-discovery. Surprisingly, each life in Villete reflects the essence of human experience that Veronika has missed. Veronika reveals many things that she has not allowed to do and even feel. She begins to understand what it means to be alive and to live. Veronika’s emptiness that becomes the reason of her suicide attempt is filled at last. The true Veronika is finally free and decides to live a meaningful life. 24

3.2. Approach of the Study

There are many kinds of approaches in literature. This study uses the psychological approach and the historical approach. The psychological approach is mostly supported by Freud with his psychoanalysis. However, due to the development of psychology, the researcher chose psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli. Psychosynthesis actually develops from psychoanalysis. The difference is that as a psychiatrist, Roberto Assagioli understood the human being not as an object, but as a subject of continuous and active interactions with the surroundings. The writer also uses the historical approach. This approach is employed to analyze the historical backgrounds of Slovenia and the mental asylum in 19 th century. This approach is applied to see whether historical background of Slovenia and the mental asylum influence the growth of the main character or not. Veronika’s personality growth is affected by the environment. The environments are Veronica’s parents, the mental asylum, Zedka, Mari, Edward, and Dr. Igor. Thus, psychosynthesis is used due to its capability to answer the questions in problem formulation. The theory of psychosynthesis will be used to analyze the personality development of the main character in Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die .

3.3. Method of the Study

In order to gather the information and sources, the writer used library research. The first step in the research was collecting the data. There are two kinds of data used, they are primary source and secondary sources. The primary