The Zahir is a kind of novel that helps the reader to deeply understand what life is and what it has to offer to the loved ones, the unloved and people helpless in search of love. Although the word "love" is repeated many times, the central theme, ironically, of this novel is not actually "love." The central theme of this novel is the difficult journey to understanding oneself, and love fits into just this struggle that the narrator strives for. Since the narrator's wife, Esther, was reported missing, the narrator was determined to re-examine himself from the beginning. Although his habits of cheating and sleeping with many women are not one of his virtues, he has a character of determination, perseverance and resilience. As the narrator struggles to find inner peace, he realizes all of his flaws and everything that made him so repulsive to some people. He had found the root of all his miseries in life when he decided to listen to his late wife's advice to write a novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original Essay As he began working on his novel and meeting new people with new things to offer, he discovered the problem in himself and why he wasn't doing it. bother to resolve it or even face it. Therefore, the struggle to understand oneself is the dominant theme of this novel, and this is what makes this story a life lesson and not just a run-of-the-mill novel about misery and self-pity. At the beginning of the story, the narrator was imprisoned due to a false accusation of his wife's murder, but he got out within a day. When he came out, he was immersed in self-pity, curiosity and anger. The narrator numbed his feelings by drinking heavily and bringing younger women back to his apartment almost every night. However, one of Esther's colleagues came to the narrator and informed him that Esther was still alive. From then on, the narrator decides to stay sober and start writing a novel, as Esther had advised him a long time ago. As the narrator wrote, he realized that the character he had “invented” resembled him impeccably. He decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and go find love instead of just waiting for it on his couch. Finding love was only the narrator's first step in re-examining and understanding himself in depth. In one of his most serious relationships with a woman named Marie, he asked her: “Marie, suppose two firefighters enter a forest to put out a small fire. Then, when they emerge and walk towards a stream, one's face is all smeared black, while the other's face is completely clean. My question is: which of the two will wash their face? To which she responds by saying the man with the dirty mouth. The narrator then explains in a long passage: “No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume he looks like him. And conversely, the man with a clean face will see his colleague covered in dirt and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I better wash up. I say that during my stay in the hospital, I realized that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their pretty, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, no matter how smart or confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me, thinking they were worse than them . After his stay in the hospital, he leaves Marie because hediscovers that he cannot love at all. The second stage of the narrator's journey of re-examination and understanding is that of recovery of self-esteem. The narrator continues to write his novel because he believes it is the only way to truly understand his character. Often the narrator compares himself to others, even the simplest beggar sitting on the sidewalk. When he is done with his thoughtful comparison, he comes to the conclusion that he is no better than the other person, sometimes worse than this person. “The energy of hatred will get you nowhere; but the energy of forgiveness, which is revealed through love, will transform your life in a positive way. A quote from the book given by one of the narrator's nurses while he was in the hospital for his epilepsy. The narrator unconsciously began to describe the virtues of his main character in the novel he was working on. Although the resemblance between him and his character was not clear to him, he understood it at the very end of the novel. The narrator began to accept his flaws by spending a whole night writing them down. He realized that it always ended in stupidity when he compared himself to others. There was only one step left to complete his eternity of struggle, the step of self-acceptance and the search for inner peace with his worst fears and nightmares. The last and final stage of the narrator's great effort was the most difficult to overcome. He's had to accept who he is – with all the good and the bad – and has to be at peace with them and not hate himself for it. He began by saying, “If I want to find her, I will first have to find myself.” » The protagonist had already finished his novel and now had to overcome this obstacle without any help, he had to do it alone, with his determination and perseverance. An important part of this step took place when he called Esther, his wife, the Zahir, hence the name of this novel. In Arabic, the word “zahir” acts as a noun or adjective, it translates to the word “the remarkable” or “visible”. The reason why the title of the novel fits the plot perfectly is because his wife is the visible truth that will show the narrator his path to happiness. However, in the novel, the narrator says this about the Zahir: “The Zahir was the fixation on everything that had been passed down from generation to generation; he leaves no question unanswered, he covers all space; it never allowed us to consider the possibility of things changing. He found acceptance in himself by calling his wife the Zahir because, as much as he hates to admit it, his wife is right about him; that he is a person who is afraid of this world and chooses to hate people or break their hearts before it happens to him. In other words, he would cheat, behave maliciously, or even hate people without knowing who they are because he didn't want the same thing to happen to him first. He realized that his selfishness and greed were the cause of Esther's "disappearance" for a year. At the very end, Esther and the protagonist meet “by chance” in their favorite café in Paris, “Le Blanc Café”, and talk about their travels. They came to an agreement that they would both be happy living alone because they accepted all their faults and inequities, so there is no need to have someone by their side to reassure their meaningful existence in the world. Esther ended their conversation by saying, “Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison him, he enslaves us. When we try to understand it, we feel lost and confused. » Keep in mind: this is just a sample...