Struggle for a Better Life in Paulo Coelho’s Novel Eleven Minutes

This article aims at discerning struggles accomplished by the novel’s central female character Maria for transforming her mediocre life into a better one. Her notion of making a better life, as she trusts, is through earning a substantial amount of money after working the assigned tasks decently and convivially regardless the nature of the tasks. Her journey from her nation Brazil to an alien nation Switzerland indicates her resilient determination for a hard struggle for the betterment of her life. Her encounters with ups and downs, and cheers and tears during her chores in diverse fields make her realize the reality of life through her perception of the essence of true love, fake love, body and soul. This article is grounded on a qualitative analytical research in which the primary data that are qualitative or nominal in nature are taken from the novel under study, whereas the secondary data are extracted from other related books and journal articles. Its conclusion based on Maria’s journey, deeds and hardship suggests that life is full of struggles; and it is quite necessary to move up the stairs of hardship to raise the level of life. Money, though it is not an end, is one of the momentous means of transforming a lowly life into a better one to some extent.


Introduction
Eleven Minutes published in 2003 is a very noted novel by the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho (1947) who is known for employing sumptuous symbolism in his depictions of the expedition taken by his characters. He has contributed to the world literature momentously with his other novels such as The theme of scuffle, pain and loneliness is evident throughout the novel as Maria has to experience pain throughout her life in order to discover her true self and a better life. Loneliness is shown through the novel as Maria is lonely and her soul and mind is lost in order for her to continue with her difficult career choice. Discovery also relates to this as she discovers herself from having made love with Ralf Hart and she begins to feel much happier and realizes that she has found "love" and that her soul is rejuvenated. The theme of sexual relations is represented deeply throughout the novel as Maria is a prostitute and has many sexual relationships throughout the novel. Sex in the novel is a very dominant theme especially when Ralf Hart helps her to discover that sex is sacred and goes beyond ones soul. This theme may link to love and romance as she falls in love with Ralf Hart and they begin a relationship together after she flies home from Switzerland to Brazil after earning a lot of money.

Review of the Novel
The novel Eleven Minutes is based on a fictional account of a young woman named Maria who lives in Rio, but moves to Geneva for earning money to make her life better and meaningful. Writers and critics have evaluated this novel differently by focusing its thematic aspects. Chand and Chandel state that Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes is "a novel of immense significance. At the surface level, it deals with the sexual and erotic satisfaction of a woman but shows how orgasmic pleasure can be a springboard to plunge into the depth of pure ecstasy" (31).
This novel focuses on the struggle of Maria done to cope with the problem in life. Triutami asserts that "Coelho illustrates a psychological phenomenon which an individual should make every effort to cope with the problem of life. The psychological phenomenon is delivered by the struggle of Maria to survive in Switzerland after as fraud victim "(12). A right decision makes the life better, whereas a wrong decision can lead one to downfall and destruction. Maria's wrong decision is to choose to be a prostitute to earn money Kaushik and Desai say that "Maria's journey in Eleven Minutes (2003) can be analyzed through Fromm's concept of self-transcendence. Maria's journey shows how one can become a creator as well as a destructor" (410). Dealing with a psychological aspect is one of the outstanding features of this novel. Lestari and Darma concerning this novel affirm that "Eleven Minutes contains many factual issues related to the psychological aspect. Self-transcendence is one of psychological aspects that every human needs to experience. It is described as a self-condition for going beyond previous limit" (4).
The novel provides its readers with a brief historical account of sacred prostitution, which Larson defines as "providing sexual acts to strangers as a religious act or in exchange for a donation to a religious organization" (804). Coelho in this novel writes about erotic love and sacred love. Arul regarding this novel mentions that Coelho elevates in Eleven Minutes to "passionate realm of love, sex and divinity. Coelho uses Maria to write a saga of sex and love-making and explores the difference between the two and questions various grounds of societal codes of morality and righteous living" (82).
Wiedaininggar states that "Eleven Minutes is a very interesting novel to read. It is quite different from other novels, and it portrays Maria as an innocent girl who turns to be a high-class prostitute" (58). This novel describes Maria as a girl whose life is full of struggles as Ningrum affirms that this novel shows "the struggles of Maria in revealing her authentic self through boundary situations" (1). She comes across several situations in her life and tries to work earnestly to be better.
Coelho primarily focuses his writing on Maria, who is a central character in the novel. It deals with her poor family background, her parent's work, her love experiences in her teenage, her work in a draper's shop for supporting family, her visit to Switzerland for a better life, her work as a Samba dancer in a nightclub in Geneva, search for work as a model, money offered to her for one night with an Arab man, beginning to work as a prostitute at a brothel, Copacabana in Rue de Berne, her visit with Nyah, her days at the library, befriending the librarian and taking out books on many different subjects such as how to learn French, books about sex and farm management, her meeting with a Swiss painter Ralf Hart, her realization of sacred love with Hart, her unexpressed love for Hart, her realization of masochism with Terence, her confusion to choose sacred sex or painful sex, her leaving the path of being a prostitute, final meeting with Hart, and finally her returning to Brazil. She tries her best to fulfill her work wherever she goes. She does different tasks to make her life better. It is her desire to search for her self-identity in the society. Hitlin asserts that "personal identity is an under analyzed level of the self" (118). Hewitt explains this relationship between identities and behaviors on personal identity change and claim that "personal identity shapes-but also is shaped by-our other identities and behaviors" (122). It is her will to make the life better through earning lots of money and maintain her identity in her society.

Scuffles for a Better Life in Eleven Minutes
Maria is a woman who desires to discern the world through adventure. She has three chief aims in life: quest, money and a husband. Even her discovery and understanding of her body and then her psyche tends to create spiritual vein. When she was eleven years old, she falls in love with a boy but unluckily, he goes away. Her first love leaves her inconsolable and she feels alienated because she cannot express her feeling towards him. She starts to sense and think "love was something very perilous." After sometime, she gets second love opportunity and does not reprise the mistake. She wants to be good. In this regard, Coelho writes what she says: Think of herself as an experienced young woman, who had already allowed one grand passion to slip from her grapes and who knew the pain that this caused, and now she was determined to fight with all her might for this man and for marriage, determined that he was the man for marriage, children and the house by the sea. (7) Maria becomes determined and self-consciousness. She grows up as a matured woman. She wished that man to be her husband. She wants to consider as her first true love and actual relation. She dates with him and goes to visit different places and have romance. But this does not last long when the boy leaves her dating with her own friend. She feels alienated and lonely. Maria thinks that "life rushes us from heaven to hell in a matter of second" and love is "a cause of suffering". She decided not to fall in love again.
Because of frustration and failures in love Maria decides not to fall in love again. She starts working in a draper's shop. She knows how to use men without being used by them. She wants to earn more money and fame soon, when she arrives in Geneva. Where she faces many problems but she becomes more adventurous, self-conscious and selfcontrolled in search of treasure. She has enough will power and says "I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life (39)". Her subjectivity is self-constructing no matter though she encounters with many hurdles. She is conscious of herself as Coelho asserts: Maria chose to be an adventurer in search of treasure-she put aside her feeling, she stopped crying every night, and she forgot all about the person she used to be; she discovered that she had enough willpower to pretend that she had just been born and so had no reason to miss anyone. Feelings could wait, now what she needed to do was to earn some money, get to know the country and return home victorious. (41) Maria becomes adventurous to fulfill her dream. Her own self-consciousness willpower keeps her feelings in hearts and she is practical enough to fulfill her dream to earn enough money. Though Maria is fired by Roger from her job, and though she is left by Arab boyfriend , she keeps reminding herself that she is an adventure woman as in Coelho's hero in the The Alchemist, Maria's is similar to Coelho's hero in The Alchemist, the Andalusian shepherd travels all through the Arabian desert to reach a treasure he dreamed about by the pyramids of Egypt. Maria also wants to encounter with difficulties and believes that this will help her to find her true destiny. Maria cannot but speak of love feelings always float on the leaves of her diary as: At the moment I'm far too lonely to think about love, but I have to believe that it will happen, that I will find a job and that I am her because I chose this fate. The roller coaster is my life; life is a fact, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to go get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it. (49) She is nostalgic to the feeling of love she wants to be loved and feels alive. She is able to think of love and adventures in the depths of her loneliness. She is full of self-consciousness and can find a way out of every trouble she encounters. She continues searching for her destiny. She seeks a job as a model, takes some photos for modeling and sends them to her family. She thinks that they would all think she was rich and the owner of an enviable wardrobe and that she been transformed into her town's most illustrious daughter (48). Maria as she cannot develop her career as a model becomes a prostitute. She states: What have I got to lose if, for a while, I decide to become a….? it's a difficult word to think or even write……… but let's be blunt…… what have I got to lose if I decide to become a prostitute for a while? Honors Dignity Self-respect. Although, when I think about it, I've never had any of those things. I didn't ask to be born; I've never found anyone to love me. I've always made the wrong decisions-now I'm letting life decide for me. (64) Maria's self-consciousness shows that the despair she feels and all the difficulties thrust upon her by fate. When she met her first client, she felt that the world went into slow motion. Maria had a sense of stepping out of her own body and observing herself from the outside. Deeply embraced but struggling to control her blushes, she nodded and smiled, knowing that from that moment on her life had changed forever. Here, she seems to be self-conscious.
Maria's initiation into the world of prostitution emphasizes the importance of love for her or rather her soul. "I'm not a body with a soul; I'm a soul that has visible part called the body……. watched me" (75). Her entry into the world of the body as a merchandisable object makes her think more and more of her soul and it intensifies the perceptiveness of her self-consciousness. The more she plunges into this world, the more she is elevated to the world soul. The main reason is her realization that love and soul are more important than sex and body which are visible. She says, "I need to write about love otherwise, my soul won't survive" (76). So, she struggles in the pages of diary not to lose her soul. It is a sort of search for self-identity. Stets and Burke state that self "is reflexive in that it can take itself as an object and can categorize, classify, or name itself in particular ways in relation to other social categories or classifications" (224). Hitlin assumes that self is "one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the social science s" (118).
Stryker takes identity as the social position that the self not only possesses but also internalizes. Some sociological perspectives see identity as the result of a collectivist process. Nagel affirms that the identity becomes the offspring of the culture.
McCall and Simons affirm that identity formation process begins with the self's realization of its role assigned to him or her through a collective process that is undertaken by the agent (himself or herself) and the structure (society or group).
She has to spend about forty-five minutes with her clients. Out of forty-five minutes only eleven minutes is given to actual sexual. Rest of the time is given to take of clothes, make some phony gestures and so on which is clearly reflected in the novel as: For a night? Now come on, Maria, you're exaggerating. It's really only forty-five minutes, and if you allow time for taking off clothes, making some phony gestures of attraction, having a bit of banal conversation and getting dressed again, the amount of time spend actual having sex is about eleven minutes. (88) Thus, forty-five minutes is devoted to soul only eleven minutes is devoted to the body. Though, Maria has promised herself never to fall in love. She never gives up writing or thinking about love. So she focuses on love and soul and for her the only word that is important than the eleven minutes is love.
Maria's main reason for coming to Geneva is adventure. Along this adventure she thinks of love. She thinks herself as a brave, happy and independent woman. She is a responsible and self-confident person full of self-consciousness. She does not think of love as self-destructive. It is her positive feeling that encourages her to search for identity and better life. For her, love is rather self-liberating which she expresses as: All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that's a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person, who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels forest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free. That is why, regardless of what I might experience, do or learn, nothing makes sense. I hope this time passes quickly, so that I can resume my search for myself in the form of a man who understands me and does not make me suffer. (92) Love equals freedom rather than enslavement. Maria realizes that nobody loves wholeheartedly when she had her feelings about the betrayal off her first boyfriend at the beginning of her adolescent years. She has some hope for her near future for the reconciliation of the two souls who makes her free rather than suffering to her.
Some people take adventure as something masculine. But Maria is as adventurous as Coelho's hero in The Alchemist, Santiago. She is not less masculine than him. She is a very confident woman, capable of making an extremely difficult decision and she can defense anything. This can be realized when Maria meets Ralph Hart asks Maria if she is "sex worker" Maria feels offended and for the first time she feels ashamed of what she is doing. But she has nothing to lose. Even in his situation, she honestly says it her virtue. She shows her sincere identity as a prostitute. Maria felt her confidence returning to her selfesteem. It is demonstrated by the fact that she is proud of her profession, though she is prostitute it is her one great quality and her virtue.
She further defends her profession and expresses "how you could possibly say that you could see a "special light" in a woman who, as you discovered while you were painting. Is nothing but a prostitute" (107). When Ralph speaks to Maria about her willpower which he sees as a special light, she calms down and comes to think that there are interesting men on the face of the earth. Ralf Hart is one who understands her soul or as if he speaks her language or shares her journey and quest for adventure and love.
With Ralph Hart, her feeling of alienation starts to disappear. She feels secure with Ralph. He sees in her a special light. She finds herself falling in love with him. She states: I've met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason; I'm not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months' time, I'll be far away and he'll be just a memory, but I couldn't stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit. (140) Maria's love is unconditional. She willingly lets herself fall in love which indicates her own selfconsciousness. Her belief in the soul takes her to think that "really important meeting are planned by the soul's longs before the bodies see each other" (151). After the meeting of souls comes the meeting of bodies. She explores the sacred nature of sex within the context of love.
Maria learns sadomasochism from her clients, Terence. He has the right to do whatever he likes in exchange for one thousand francs. He wants to teach Maria how pain and suffering transformed into joy and pleasure through sacrifice. She thinks about experiencing such a transformation since she is an adventurous woman. She lets herself be taken by the stream since she understands the reason behind such a world as he says, "Do you know why I am doing this? Because there is no greater pleasure than that of initiating someone into an unknown world. Taking someone's virginity-the virginity not of their body, but of their soul, you understand" (149). Pain is not a cause of suffering but the pain is source of pleasure. Pain becomes joy.
She knows well how to bear suffering. The virginity of souls stands for innocence and initiating her into that world is like taking her in an adventure of self-discovery. "Pain was no longer a cause of suffering but a source of pleasure" (148). When Terence beats Maria, she starts to experience selfannihilation, subjective and complete loss of any sense of ego, desire or self as Coelho writes: Maria started to walk, obeying his commands: 'stop, 'turn to right', 'sit down', 'open your legs'. He slapped her again and again, whether she deserved it or not, and she felt the pain and felt the humiliation-which was more intense and more potent than the pain-and she felt as if she were in another world, in which nothing existed, and it was an almost religious feeling: selfannihilation, subjection, and a complete loss of any sense of ego, desire or self-will. (183) She felt herself feel of strength. She feels to be stronger and feels herself to be into a new world which she has never experienced before. She feels to be free from worldly trouble and realizes transformation in the world of pleasure through pain and suffering.
Her self-consciousness shows that the despair she feels and all the difficulties thrust upon her are by fate. Coelho Mention she was conscious of the power of beauty. She wanted that power of beauty to search for her self-identity. Coelho mentions: She turned nineteen, having finished secondary school, and found a job in a draper's shop, where her boss promptly fell in love with her. By then, however, Maria knew how to use a man, without being used by him. She never let him touch her, although she was always very coquettish, she was conscious of the power of her beauty. (17) Maria felt her confidence returning to her selfesteem. It is demonstrated by the fact that she is proud of her profession, though she is a prostitute, it is her one great quality and her virtue. Her diary, during her second week in Switzerland, reads: I was to the nightclub and met the dance director who comes from somewhere called Morocco, and I had to learn every step of what he-who has never set foot in Brazil -thinks is the samba. I didn't even have time to recover from the long flight; I had to start smiling and dancing on very first night. There are six of us, and not one of us is happy and none of us knows what we're doing here. The customers drink and applaud blow kisses and privately make obscene gestures, but that's as far as it goes. (39) She feels herself strong. She feels herself to be into a new world which she has never experienced before. She feels to be free from worldly trouble and realizes transformation in the world of pleasure through pain and suffering. She is indeed a strong girl. Though she made a terrible mistake in her early age, she refused to accept the result of this as her fate. She sets a goal of getting out of her fallen lifestyle and she never gives up. She wants to be a successful person and uses her creativity to manage her strategy and makes effort to cope with the problems through her courage. She suffers hard times but she does not let herself to be torn by them. She is self-determined and conscious towards her future goal. She is able to regain her happiness because of her hard work over years. She has a tremendous spirit, and because of her untiring efforts, she gets good achievements in her life. Despite her low education, she is able to fight to save her dignity. She has strong will-power that is the only way to find her true love and happiness. She is able to take some risk to live and search for identity. The dream of working as a model does not come to be true in spite of her honesty and beauty. An Arab offers her 1,000 francs for sex. Now jobless and seeing the truth behind the "modeling agency", She takes the money believing there would be more opportunities to score such extravagant wages.
But at the table with the Arab she cries. She asks him to pour some more wine and to let her cry. Even in this condition, she is hopeful about her freedom, romance, adventure and future. Coelho asserts: And Maria thought about the little boy who had asked to borrow a pencil, about the young man who had kissed her and how she had kept her mouth closed, about her excitement at seeing Rio for the first time, about the men who had used her and given nothing back, about the passions and loves lost along the way. Despite her apparent freedom, her life consisted of endless hours spent waiting for a miracle, for true love, for an adventure with the same romantic ending she had seen in films and read about in books. (53) Journey is seeking a meaningful life. Her journey provides the readers with motivation to discern the quality of meaningful life. She struggles to survive and fulfill the living needs. It is depicted when Maria struggles to survive in Geneva after being fooled by a Swiss man named Roger. First, she has to work as a Samba dancer seven nights a week. Second, when she loses her job, she decides to register on a model agency, but fails to be a model. She is desperate in looking for a job. She decides to be a prostitute as the easiest way to earn a lot of money. Living a standard life refers to the standard of living in the level of wealth, higher income, material goods and necessities to be achieved. It is depicted when Maria becomes a high class prostitute in Geneva after working for about three months. Through this job, it increases her income quickly. With all money she has, Maria moves to a better apartment, buys all the things she had always dreamed of. In fact, her hardest decision as being a prostitute leads to increase her living standard .The quality of life refers to the life satisfaction and meaningful life, including family life, future plans, and safety. It is depicted that having a job as a prostitute is uneasy to Maria. She is frustrated with her work. She has the greatest dream to get married and maintain a safe life. She also has future plans, such as return to Brazil, buy a farm, live together with her parents, and start her new life in business work. She likes to choose right friends. Choosing the right friends refers to choosing a good circles and environments to affect and to influence many things in life in a better way. There are two friends who morally support her in seeking a meaningful life. Her friend Heidi always advises her to stop and leave her job and starts learning a bit about life.

Conclusion
The novel Eleven Minutes centers its narrative on Maria, who is a candid girl capable of doing things and facing problems despite her disparaging situations. She holds her heart firm. She is utterly optimistic about her future. She does not let her inner light and gracefulness of her soul fade away despite being a prostitute for a while. She does not fail to realize the significance of soul and true love, and always looks for a better chance or circumstance to do better in life. She does earn a lot of money by facing numerous ups and downs in her life. She does not only recognize her inner self, but also establishes herself as a lenient and independent person. The novelist through the leading character Maria has pinpointed the necessity for a sheer sense and determination of searching for self-identity for a better life with sincere deeds in prosperity and even in adversity. Money, as many normal human beings trust, is one of the means of making a life better in this world.