The Zahir is a type of novel that helps the reader deeply understand what life is and what it has to offer the loved, the unloved, and the people helplessly seeking love. Although the word "love" is repeated numerous times, the central theme, ironically, of this novel is not actually "love." The central theme of this novel is the arduous journey to understand yourself, and love seems to be part of that struggle for which the narrator strives. Ever since the narrator's wife, Esther, had been reported missing, the narrator was determined to re-examine himself from the beginning. Although his habit of cheating and sleeping with many women was not his virtue, he has a determined, persevering and resilient character. As the narrator strives to find inner peace, he realizes all his flaws and flaws, and everything that made him so repulsive to some people. He had found the root of all his misery in life by deciding 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWhen he began working on his novel and meeting new people with new things to offer, he had found the problem within himself and why he didn't care about solving it or even dealing with it. Therefore, the struggle to understand oneself is the prevailing theme in this novel, and it is what makes this story more of a life lesson and not just a banal novel about misery and self-pity. At the beginning of the story, the narrator was imprisoned due to the false accusation of killing his wife, but got out of it in one day. When it came out, it was filled with 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 approached the narrator and informed him that Esther is still alive. Since then, the narrator has decided to stay sober and start writing a novel, just like the one Esther advised him to do long ago. While writing, the narrator realized that the character he "invented" resembled him impeccably. He decided to stop growing up in self-pity and go find love instead of just waiting for it on the couch. Finding love was only the narrator's first phase in re-examining and understanding himself deeply. In one of his more serious relationships with a woman named Marie, he asked her: “Marie, suppose two firefighters go into a forest to put out a small fire. Later, when they emerge and head towards a stream, one's face is smeared all over with black, while the other's face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face?” To which she responds by saying the man with the dirty face. The narrator then explains in a long passage by saying, “No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume he looks like him. And, vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in dirt and will say to himself: I must be dirty too. I better wash myself. I say that, during the time I spent in the hospital, I realized that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, however, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, no matter how intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up mirroring themselves in me thinking that they were worse than them." After his stay in hospital, he leaves Marie because he finds that he cannot love at all. The second stage of the narrator's journey in re-examining and understanding himself is the reconquest stageof self-esteem. The narrator continues to write his novel because he thinks it is the only way he can truly understand his character. Often the narrator compares himself with other people, 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 that person. “The energy of hate will get you nowhere; but the energy of forgiveness, which is revealed through love, will transform your life in a positive way.” A quote in 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 similarity between him and his character seemed unclear to him, he understood it at the very end of the novel. The narrator began to accept his flaws by spending an entire night writing them down. He realized that when he compared himself to others it always ended up being nonsense. Now only one phase remained to complete his eternal struggle, the phase of self-acceptance and finding 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 had to accept who he is, with all the good and bad, and he had to come to peace with them and not hate himself for it. He began by saying, "If I want to find her, I'll have to find myself first." The protagonist had already finished his novel and now he had to overcome this obstacle without any help, he had to do it alone, with his determination and perseverance. An important part of that phase was when he called Esther, his wife, the Zahir, hence the name of this novel. In Arabic, the word "zahir" serves as a noun or adjective and translates to the word "conspicuous" or "visible." The reason the novel's title fits the plot perfectly is because his wife is the visible truth that will show the narrator his path to bliss. 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; left no question unanswered, searches all the space; he never allowed us to even consider the possibility that things could change." He found self-acceptance in calling his wife Zahir because, as much as he hates to admit it, his wife is right about him; who is a person who is afraid of this world and chooses to hate people or break their hearts before it can happen 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 what caused Esther to “disappear” for a year. In the end, Esther and the protagonist meet “coincidentally” 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 flaws and iniquities, so there is no need to have someone by their side to reassure them of their meaningful existence in the world. Esther concluded the conversation by saying, “Love is a wild force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, we feel lost and confused. "Remember: This is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay The Zahir is an intensely spiritual book that explores all the evil traits that humans have but are afraid to accept, such as the selfishness, greed and sometimes a bit of conceit and vanity also gives..