45 pages • 1 hour read
Paulo CoelhoVeronika Decides To Die
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Sanity as Conformity to Normalcy
The novel’s central concern is identifying normalcy and defining what it means to live outside of it. Paulo Coelho navigates this through the allegory of mental health. “Sanity” is a metaphor for normalcy, or the pressures of society to live one’s life a certain way. “Insanity” is a metaphor for living outside of normalcy, on one’s own authentic path despite the pressure to conform. This metaphor has a basis in the real-world operation of psychiatric institutions. For example, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is widely regarded as the reference book for mental health conditions. LGBTQ+ sexual identities were only fully removed from the categorization of mental health condition in the DSM in 2013.
Cultural norms and the status quo play a significant role in determining what is “pathological” and what is “normal” human functioning (See Socio-Cultural Context: Mental Health and Psychiatric Hospitals for more information). Coelho exaggerates this real-world phenomenon to suggest that every inhabitant of Villete is suffering solely from culturally determined conditions. Mental illness is an allegory that allows Coelho to investigate the boundary between what is normal and what deviates from the norm.
Veronika’s journey in Villete is a quest to discover what “normal” is and how her desires are incompatible with normalcy. Pre-Villete, Veronika’s enjoyment of life is severely hampered by the belief that she must live a quiet, normal life: Obtain a degree, frequent bars, and work a job she does not care for. Veronika’s belief that she must be normal prompts her attempt to die by suicide. It is only when she enters Villete and makes friends with the “insane” that she realizes she must forsake normalcy to live a fulfilling life. When Zedka and Mari leave, they are excited to be seen as “insane” former Villete inmates in the outside world. Leaving Villete with the mark of “insanity” is a badge of honor that marks the characters’ reclamation of their authentic selves. Each character enters Villete because of their attempts to remain normal and each character leaves with this badge of “insanity.” Coelho suggests that normalcy is the real “insanity.”
Coelho envisions normalcy as an entirely socially determined set of expectations that have little to no bearing in practicality, logic, and human needs. Dr. Igor and Zedka provide much of the scaffolding for this conclusion. Zedka’s story of the wizard who poisons the kingdom’s wells suggests that a socially elite power with vested interests may exercise control over what society deems “normal” for their own benefit, making “normalcy” a tool in struggles for social control. Rigor presents a more nihilistic and absurd view of normalcy: Normalcy is a nonsense congregation of social habits, attitudes, and ways of living that become meaningless shortly after they become societal habit. Igor’s examples of the necktie, the QWERTY keyboard, and the direction of movement within a clock provide evidence for this conclusion. Each of these may have served a purpose at one point (like the QWERTY keyboard slowing down typing so typewriters would not jam, or neckties denoting a certain class of professionals), yet each of them became a nonsense habit of humanity, repeated without sense of the original meaning.
Coelho uses this absurdist view of normalcy to muddy the line between who is “sane” and who is “insane.” The anecdotes, analogies, and parables of the residents of Villete suggest that normalcy is far closer to “insanity” than living authentically.
Finding Meaning in an Absurd World
Veronika Decides to Die relies on absurdist conventions to portray each character’s allegorical journey of self-discovery. Veronika’s suicide scene is a paradigmatic example of the novel’s absurdism. Veronika follows her mundane routine of brushing her teeth and laying down as if she isn’t about to die. She spends her last moments on Earth reading a magazine she has no interest in. The banality of Veronika’s actions, as if today is any other day, contrasts with the finality of her impending death. Veronika’s indignation over the video game article that asks, “Where is Slovenia?” and her subsequent letter to the editor give her suicide an atmosphere of absurdity (2).
Absurdism often dissolves meaning. It makes Veronika’s suicide seem meaningless or unreal despite her stated reasons for suicide. Absurdity suffuses Villete, from Dr. Igor’s rants about human sexuality to Veronika’s bereaved mother, to Zedka and Eduard enjoying insulin shock and electroshock (“treatments” for mental health conditions that are widely considered torture today). The non-believability of absurdist human actions is a tool used in allegorical stories, where the moral aphorism is more important than telling a believable, realistic story about people.
Coelho’s characters struggle against the world’s and their own absurdity to find meaning in life. Absurdity is often tied to the status quo, normalcy, and “sanity” as seen in Dr. Igor’s anecdote about the necktie or in the nurses “doing their job” of subjecting the Villete residents to torturous treatment (15). The quest to find meaning is antithetical to absurdism, which dissolves meaning. Coelho’s alignment of absurdity with normalcy is a reversal of conventional ideas. It allows Coelho to question the privileged position of “sanity.” When every character in Villete leaves for the outside world, they are labeled “insane” or “crazy” by both the Fraternity and the external world. While their actions may appear absurd to the world-at-large, Coelho’s reversal of conventional wisdom about what is absurd and what is normal heavily suggests that the “insane” actions of the reformed Villete patients are actually the “sanest” in the world.
Each character leaves Villete with a strong sense of purpose: Zedka wants to be with her husband again, Mari wants to be a humanitarian aid worker, and Veronika and Eduard want to be artists. Before Villete, each character struggled and failed to embrace these goals, leaving them purposeless and conforming to an absurd standard of normalcy. Coelho’s allegory suggests that a meaningful life relies on being labeled as an outsider by those who consider themselves normal.
Death as Inspiration to Live Life
Death is one of the few constants of the human condition, and the threat of death is the inciting action in Veronika’s journey. Mari wins her freedom from Dr. Igor by debating him on the human soul. Referring to her piano-playing, she asks him: “And am I not going to die? Where is my soul that I might play the music of my own life with such enthusiasm?” (170). The residents of Villete are trying to determine the best way to spend their limited time on Earth before death. Before Veronika’s appearance, they believed that the outside world was hopeless and that the reprieve of “insanity” was the best life might offer.
Veronika is both the patient who wants to die by suicide and the one who clings tightly to life through her piano playing. Coelho frequently uses paradox and contradiction to highlight his allegory’s philosophical aims. One might expect the woman who wishes to die by suicide to welcome a terminal diagnosis. Veronika’s newfound desire to live in the face of her death sentence defies expectations; this highlights the importance of living well by one’s standards before death inevitably arrives. Veronika’s confrontation with death, and her tenacity for life despite her suicidal ideations, shocks the other people in Villete into reconsidering their own relationships with death and self-fulfillment.
Coelho derives his narrative structure to remind readers of Veronika’s impending doom, making death seem inescapable. Veronika is informed early that she only has a week to live (29). After the introduction of Veronika’s doomsday timer, new sections within the novel often remind the reader how much time has passed since Veronika’s suicide attempt. After Veronika’s first day, readers are told that three days pass in relative quiet and that Veronika reclaims her love of the piano with as little as 48 hours of life remaining. As Veronika has less time, she begins sleeping less to get the most out of her remaining life.
Coelho ensures that readers never forget about Veronika’s dwindling grasp on life throughout the novel. The frequent reminders of Veronika’s remaining time forge a strong correlation between Veronika’s loss of life and her growing desire to live. As her time shrinks, her desire for life grows. Death’s lingering presence in the narrative structure suggests that Igor is correct in believing that an “awareness of death” is vital in pushing an individual to live authentically (207). Cognizance of mortality pushes the characters to live authentically. Coelho’s heavy repetition of death’s presence also invites the reader to consider their own mortality.
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