The Self-Actualized Protagonists in Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes

Abstract

Man, since time immemorial is in continual search for the essential quest of meaning and the ultimate reality of life which comes through self-actualization. Self-actualization is the basic need, the ultimate goal and a continual process of growth for human beings. Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian novelist, takes the human self as the central point to deal with the wider issues of the human enterprise. In his fictional world common human beings, not the epic heroes/heroines struggle to try to find the true meaning of life. His heroes are not defeated and heart broken by the bitter realities of life, but are the ones who take arms against all the oddities that life offers and resort to noble and seldom trodden paths in order to pursue and find treasures that lie un-explored within the human self. The present paper seeks to explore the self-actualized heroes of the two protagonists’ Santiago and Maria in his novels Alchemist and Eleven Minutes and provide us lessons on how to find the purpose and meaning of life.