The Ultimate Truth in Paulo Coelho’s The Devil and Miss Prym (2000) from the Perspective of Graham Harman’s Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) and Wilfred Bion’s Binocular Vision

This paper builds on Graham Harman’s Object Oriented Ontology as well as on Wilfred Bion’s binocular vision proposed as an ideology of understanding reality while posing a controversial question: does everything around have one ultimate truth? The paper suggests a departure from theories of subjecthood, to one of objecthood. It proposes potential sides of reality that can broaden human vision of it and highlights the search for an ultimate truth and man’s single-sided view of things and situations as mainly responsible for man’s failure to understand reality. Consequently, the deep-rooted attitude of anthropocentricism with its consequent hierarchical system of human and non-human beings are critically tackled. The paper proposes Harman’s definition of real and sensual objects as part of his flat egalitarian ontology that weakens the cause of anthropocentricism, theocentric belief and correlationist theory. It then sets Bion’s binocular vision of reality as its therapeutic part that might mitigate man’s anxiety due to the elusive nature of truth and reality. The paper seeks to propose a definition of truth in light of the two suggested philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives. To better achieve its objective, it attempts a thorough reading of Paulo Coelho’s The Devil and Miss Prym that is a search-for-spiritual truth journey wherein the nature of human beings either as good or evil is questioned. The paper examines the use of the technique of magical realism with one question in mind: does it hinder man’s truth attainment or does it rather serve to illuminate the mystery of the world?