Quest for Self-Discovery in The Zahir
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Abstract
Coelho draws the picture of an imagined narrator who is indeed similar to the writer himself to a greater extent and conveys the philosophical message that life is uncertain and everyone undergoes distinct levels of thoughts and psychological transmission in order for creating and getting one’s human existence. The most powerful energy that makes one to exist with value, dignity, prestige, meaning, comfort, pleasure and harmony, is love and emotional attachment which indeed everyone requires as support for living. Furthermore, the instable and fluctuating stance of the narrator in the course of searching Esther, his wife left him and disappeared makes it clear that he is in the process of becoming and comprehending the sense of human life and its prominence in the family affair. After all, the mobility and keen quest for Esther and his self are focused in the sense that both of them are reciprocally concerned and affect each other. In the absence of Esther, his life proves worse than he has ever thought before and similarly in the absence of self identity, his life is futile and meangingless. On the whole the entire text, The Zahir carries on this philosophical content that implicitly precedes everyone to assimilate in life to create meaning of human existence.