A Review of Alchemist Book based on Maslow's theory of self-fulfillment

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Larestan Higher Education Assembly, Larestan, Iran

Abstract

The present study analyzes the story of the Alchemist Story by Paulo Coelho based on Maslow's theory. The purpose of this article is to achieve a deep understanding of the main character of Santiago's story by analyzing the comparative content and matching the text of the story with Maslow's chain of needs; how Santiago fulfilled Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs starting with the journey to the treasure. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is divided into five categories: Physiology, Security, Love and Belonging, Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization. At the level of physical needs, Santiago could easily meet his needs. When he started his journey towards realizing his need for security, he faced major challenges, but he was able to overcome them with the power of faith. The need for love and self-esteem was satisfied enough to pave his way to self-realization. Spirituality helped him a lot in passing through the sufferings of the path of self-realization. The result of the comparative study of Santiago's personality with Maslow's needs showed that despite all the difficulties, Santiago was able to fulfill the needs from the lowest level to the highest level and achieve the only task of humans, which is to realize the personal legend. A detailed description of how to meet the needs is provided in the article.

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References

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Research on Fictional Literature
Volume 11, Issue 3 - Serial Number 40
October 2022
Pages 169-184

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