JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
A Study into the Style and Narrative Techniques Adopted in Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir
Dr. Kumar Gaurav Assistant Professor Department of English K.S.R. College, Sarai Ranjan, Samastipur, Bihar, India
Abstract
Paulo Coelho, the famous Brazilian author is one of the most influential writers of modern age. Coelho’s The Zahir is an attempt to understand the different possibilities that life throws at us. The Zahir which means ‘obvious’ or ‘conspicuous’ in Arabic is a story that revolves around life of a unnamed narrator who is a famous celebrity and a bestselling novelist. His wife, Esther who is a award winning journalist and a war correspondent has gone missing. The aim of the research paper is to study the different narrative techniques and styles that the author has adopted in this novel to make it a literary masterpiece.
Keywords: Paulo Coelho, Narrative Techniques, The Zahir.
1. Introduction
Coelho’s protagonist of the novel, the unnamed author, is a renowned author. As he is a famous
celebrity the local police and press both initially suspect the narrator might be having some
role in the disappearance of his wife. The disappearance of his wife forces him to analyse his
married life with Esther as well as his own life with a different perspective. Initially he is unable
to figure out the actual reasons which might have led to Esther’s disappearance. But after
meeting Mikhail, the translator guy, with whom Esther was supposed to have eloped with, he
finds out that Esther has left him because the narrator after becoming a successful novelist and
a famous celebrity started to look for happiness in other things thereby ignoring her happiness
and emotions. The narrator tells his current lover, Marie who is a successful actress and a
celebrity about Mikhail and his special powers. Marie warns the narrator against Mikhail as
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she is susceptible towards him because of his epileptic fits. Marie advises him to go in search
of Esther despite being in love with him as she knows that is what the narrator’s real desire is.
The narrator finally decides to embark on the journey to find his Zahir, his wife Esther. The
journey which started from Paris will take him to Kazakhstan as that is where his Zahir is,
making carpets and giving French lessons. The journey from Paris to Kazakhstan will help the
narrator explore true meaning of love, life, happiness and lead him towards discovery of self.
2. Discussion
The story of The Zahir is set in the year around 2000-2005. This can be concluded from the
fact that Mikhail who is a resident of Kazakhstan is around fifteen years old when the country
gets freedom from communist regime of Russia. And in the novel at the time when he meets
the narrator he is twenty five years old. Kazakhstan got its freedom in the year 1991. Besides
the story also mentions that the wife of narrator had returned from Iraq after covering the war
as a war correspondent. As Iraq has been at war since beginning of twenty first century,
therefore, that confirms the assumption that the novel is set in the year 2000-2005.
The plot of the novel is set at various locations. The story starts from Paris. Paris is the centre
of the plot throughout the novel. It does go to Spain, Kazakhstan and Croatia for a brief period
in flashback but the story always returns to Paris before ending at Kazakhstan. The narrator
who is a bestselling novelist and a celebrity lives at Paris with his journalist wife Esther. He is
well known in Paris which is evident from the fact that the police man who arrested him on the
charge that he might be involved in the disappearance of his wife knows him though he has not
read any of his books.
The story also travels to Spain in a flashback. The narrator was a lyricist before becoming a
writer. His wife, Esther suggests him to walk on the medieval pilgrimage route i.e. the road to
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Santiago which will motivate him to start writing the book he had wanted to write since
childhood.
The setting moves to Kazakhstan more than once. This place is important in the context of the
story. It is where Esther meets Mikhail for the first time and finds out the reason behind
unhappiness in her life. She has been to Kazakhstan to cover some war report but decided to
stay there and make carpets as it brings peace in her life. The place is also important in the
context of the novel as it tells the atrocities committed by the communist regime of Russia
before Kazakhstan got freedom. Besides the narrator’s search for his missing wife ends at
Kazakhstan where he finds her waiting for him.
The setting of the novel also goes to Croatia for a brief period. The importance of this place
lies with narrator as it is where he has been coming when he used to travel looking for adventure
much before he became famous as a novelist. It is at Croatia, where he finally decides that he
will go in search of his wife. He already knows that Esther is in Kazakhstan but cannot go there
to find her as advised by Mikhail.
Unlike previous books e.g. The Alchemist, Veronika Decides To Die and Eleven Minutes
considered for this research work, Coelho decided to use first person narrative to describe the
story of The Zahir. Though the novel is not based on autobiographical account but the character
of unnamed narrator is inspired from the life of Coelho himself. The first person point of view
helps Coelho in convincing his readers about the plight of the narrator, the trauma he undergoes
after finding out that his wife has left him. Also Coelho makes his readers develop empathy for
the narrator as they spend most of the time in character’s brain.
Coelho has strong reasons for writing the novel in the first-person narrative. The Zahir
highlights the story of the narrator’s love, neglect, suffering and reunion with his wife Esther.
By using first person narrative, Coelho allows the narrator to tell his story to the readers in
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whatever way he feels is right thereby establishing direct connection with readers. An example
of first person narrative used in one of the text is illustrated below,
“I’ve spent a large part of my life enslaved to one thing or another, so I should know the
meaning of the word. Ever since I was a child, I have fought to make freedom my most precious
commodity, I fought with my parents, who wanted me to be an engineer, not a writer. I fought
with the other boys at school, who immediately homed in on me as the butt of their cruel jokes,
and only after much blood had flowed from my nose and from theirs, only after many
afternoons when I had to hide my scars from my mother – because it up to me not her to solve
my problems – did I manage to show them that I could take a thrashing without bursting into
tears. I fought to get a job to support myself, and went to work as a delivery man from a
hardware store, so as to be free from that old line in family blackmail: “We’ll give you money,
but you’ll have to do this, this and this”.(Coelho 9)1
The ‘Rising Action’ of the novel is the disappearance of his wife Esther. Esther’s disappearance
without telling the narrator any reason for doing so sets the tone of the novel. Her disappearance
pushes the narrator to revisit and understand the marital aspects and responsibilities of a
husband which he has forgotten under the influence of his celebrity status. Esther’s
disappearance will take the narrator back in time to make him realize true value of his wife.
The ‘Falling Action’ in the novel is when prior to finding his wife the narrator admits to Mikhail
that the travel across the steppes of Kazakhstan has made him remember all his past life which
help him realize what all wrong he did with his wife Esther which forced her to leave him. His
visit to steppes has turned him into a believer as he now believes that Mikhail “hear voices”
and Mikhail “did have visions when he was a child”.
Coelho’s The Zahir has few ironies in his story. The story starts with an irony. Early in the
novel, the narrator admits to the police officer that he loves his wife very much and is unaware
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of any particular reason because of which she can leave him. Though he claims to love his wife
very much but he is released from the prison because a lady friend of his wife confirms to the
police his version of the story that he was sleeping with her when his wife disappeared.
Coelho’s protagonist and his wife, though claim to love each other and are married to each
other for ten years, don’t mind in having affairs outside marriage. The narrator is sad as his
wife has left him but feels good that the trip to jail got him a potential reader in the form of the
police officer who knew beforehand about the narrator being a famous novelist.
Another irony associated with the story is that the narrator was a journalist before becoming a
famous writer. As a youth working as a journalist, his socialistic beliefs forces him to fight
government, to bring the change in the society. However once he hears the Beatles for the first
time, he chooses to become a rock music junkie. Coelho highlights the fickle aspect of human
mind that a person who chose to fight a government for a popular cause decides to abandon the
idea as he finds a better option.
Coelho takes the help of ‘parallelism’ when the protagonist of the novel, the narrator draws a
parallel with Ulysses and Esther paralleling with Penelope. Ulysses has been cursed by God
because of which it takes a lot of time for him to reach his wife Penelope who has been weaving
for that time. Similarly, the narrator takes more than two years to find Esther who was also
weaving carpets for that time.
Coelho introduces ‘conflict’ in the novel The Zahir as the protagonist of the novel, the narrator
is obsessed with his wife Esther. Before marrying Esther, the narrator has been married thrice
and admits that before leaving they accuse him of lack of emotional maturity. After Esther’s
disappearance the narrator’s life has once again returned to normal state. He wrote a best seller
novel after Esther left him and is in a relationship with Marie, the celebrity actress. Despite
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everything going in almost perfect state he is unable to let go Esther from his mind and heart.
His obsession for Esther is not letting him live peacefully.
Coelho has taken the help of symbols to explain some important relations of life. The use of
railway tracks to explain the marriage has been managed efficiently. Coelho through the
narrator advises that there is a reason that the distance between the two tracks is fixed to 143.5
centimetres. Romans in ancient time fixed that ratio and no one changed it after that. For the
train to reach its destination its important that the distance between track remain constant. The
same rule applies to marriages if one wants it to be perfect . “when two people get married,
they must stay frozen like that for the rest of their lives. You will move along side by side like
two tracks, keeping always that same distance apart. Even if sometimes one of you needs to be
a little further away or a little closer, that is against the rules”(Coelho 141)2.
3. Conclusion
The novel reaches ‘climax’ when finally, the narrator meets Esther. He finds her reading his
bestseller novel to some women and kid. The narrator has been dying to meet her. He has been
searching her for a long time and feels relaxed and happy when Esther admits that she has been
waiting for him. However, he is shocked to know that she is pregnant. But he also knows that
their love for each other is eternal, far from the boundaries of physical love. Coelho’ The Zahir
makes its readers understand and believe true value of life and love. In order to find real
happiness in life, one must let go of all the negativity stored in the brain in the form of memories
and personal history.
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References
1. Coelho, Paulo. The Zahir-A Novel of Obsession. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa.
Harper Collins Publisher, 2014, pp. 09
2. Coelho, Paulo. The Zahir-A Novel of Obsession. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa.
Harper Collins Publisher, 2014, pp. 141
3. Ralph, Freedman. The Lyrical Novel, Princeton University Press, 1973.
4. Wayne, C.Booth. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago university Press,1961.
5. http://www.langaugeinindia.com/sunith autopia.pdf
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