Analysis Of The Alchemist By Pablo Coelho

What is a personal legend? In The Alchemist the king of Salem says that one’s personal legend is “...what you have always wanted to accomplish” (21). This novel is about a young boy who travels the desert, pursuing his personal legend, trying to find his treasure. Meanwhile, he learns how to connect with the world and many other valuable lessons, including his own personal legend. Paulo Coelho writes about person legends all throughout the book.

Santiago is having trouble parting with the life he has built for himself as a shepherd. The old king thought it most appropriate to tell a parable in order to ease Santiago in his decision to follow his Personal Legend. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drop of oil on the spoon.”(Coelho 35). What the king was try to tell Santiago was that you can travel the world without parting with what you have built for yourself. This was able to give Santiago some piece with his decision to sell his sheep and set out on something new.

The third and fourth obstacle Santiago faces is his fear of defeat and realizing his dream. For example, “They made him continue digging, but he found nothing. As the sun rose, the men began to beat the boy. He was bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn to shreds, and he felt death was near.” The obstacle he defeated was the fear of defeat people will meet on the journey to fulfilling our destiny. People have to be patient in difficult times and know that the universe is conspiring in our favor, even if some do not know. Santiago had patience and allowed the men to beat him. Because of his patience they eventually left him alone

“You can always turn a bad kisser into a good one,” Laura Prepon. Santiago, the main character of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist leads a modest and ordinary life as a shepherd. Santiago travelled constantly, exploring the Andalusian terrain. In his travels, Santiago met a woman who interpreted his dreams, and told him his treasure would lie in Egypt at the pyramids. However, Santiago believed that the dream interpreter was a phony, and he continued to herd his sheep. Soon after, he exchanged words with the King of Salem, and Santiago was once again told to venture to Egypt in order to find his treasure. After careful consideration, Santiago sells his precious sheep and begins his journey. An alchemist, somebody who turns lead

At the beginning of the novel, Santiago is frightened to chase his dreams and believe his intuition. When he has a reoccurring dream about a treasure hidden at the bottom of the Great Pyramids, instead of trusting himself, he heads to go to a nearby town and visits a gypsy women. There the women helps Santiago to interpret the dream he had and she confirms his previous suspicions about what it truly meant. Even after talking to the gypsy, he still had some doubts about going on this journey and if it was real. It is not until he meets Melchizedek, the king of Salem, and has a conversation about personal legends, that Santiago finally decides to pursue his dream. Instead of trusting himself, he sought others opinions before making a decision. Throughout his voyage, Santiago learns to trust himself. This is most prominent and sudden, when the alchemist and Santiago were captured, the alchemist did not tell Santiago exactly what he needed to do to be able to turn into the wind, but he was about to have faith in himself and be successful. This was a sudden

The reader will also discern the scores of parallels able to be drawn between Santiago and Jesus Christ, making Santiago a literary ‘Christ-figure’. Both were somewhat outcast, in Santiago’s case because he was not a native Columbian. This makes it easier for the town to allow Santiago’s death, and make him the scapegoat. The town’s unwillingness to save Santiago is similar to the Jews choosing to have Jesus killed rather than a murderer. In both cases, those who had the chance to save the innocent man felt terrible afterwards. Jesus had foretold his own death, and although Santiago was blissfully unaware of his demise until it befell him, the narrator states ‘never was there a death more foretold.’ In dying for the sake of Angela Vicario’s honour, Santiago is sacrificed for the sins of others, which was also Jesus’ purpose in dying. In addition, the seven fatal wounds Santiago suffers probably represent the Seven Deadly sins.

Santiago’s dream sequence mentioned at the beginning of the novella is one of the most significant symbols in the novella. He dreams that “he was going

In The Alchemist every adventure, quest, and obstacle Santiago had to overcome was all a part of him realizing his Personal Legend. Early in the book Santiago encounters Melchizedek, the old king, who explains to him, “In the long run what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own personal legends.” This had helped Santiago realize that instead of concerning

The hardships along Santiago's journey tested him and made it so his personal legend was even more difficult to fulfill. These challenging and taxing situations proved Santiago’s dedication. One of the first hardships Santiago is faced with is a common thief. The man took Santiago's money, claiming he would buy him a camel, and simply ran away with it. Upon losing all his money to the thief, “he had nothing, not even the money to return home and start over” (Coelho 2014, 41). This situation forced Santiago into the painful position of not knowing what was to come. Santiago was so eager to get to fulfill his legend that in his hurry he forgot one of the simplest lessons, to be weary of strangers. After finding a job in the city and working for

“The black signifies ‘yes’ and the white ‘no’… always ask objective questions.” (Coelho 31) The King offers an extremely important, yet small aid to Santiago. After he influences Santiago into going after his personal legend not much of him is seen. He lets the natural process of social Darwinism take its tide. “social Darwinists argue that governments should not interfere with human competition..” (Social Darwinism 1) When he steps in, the King is essentially informing Santiago that if he (unknowingly) follows what he says (the principles of social Darwinism), then he will achieve greatness. The king sets Santiago on his way, and then quickly removes himself from the situation, emphasizing how it is all up to Santiago and that he has done his job. This is a prime example of the literary theory having an impact on Santiago and the

Fatima mentioned how the omens had guided Santiago to her, but it was the old king that led Santiago in the first place. The old king helped Santiago figure out what his Personal Legend was. He said, ‘”But let’s say that the most important is that you have succeeded in discovering your Personal Legend.”’ This is saying that he wanted to have Santiago succeed in finding his Personal Legend so he would live it out. This might be elaborating off Santiago’s dream of traveling. Santiago didn’t want to know more of this idea of having a Personal Legend so the old king gave him more info on it. He told him, ‘”It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.”’ This shows that the old

Paulo Coelho was born on August 24, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When he was a boy, he was expected to become an engineer like his father. However, Paulo wanted to be a writer and rebelled against his parents. This made his parents transport him to a mental asylum. When Paulo was released, he was accepted into law school in 1970. Unfortunately, he dropped out of law school to explore South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe. The next years were spent living as a hippie and engaging in drugs. Then, his dream of writing was returned after he visited Spain at the age of 36. Paulo walked more 500 miles along a road known as "The Road to Santiago de Compostela". In addition, the road was a site of Catholic

For Santiago to keep himself and the alchemist alive, he talks to the desert, wind, and sun. When Santiago is done talking to these three forces of nature, he realizes: “The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles” (157). As Santiago is striving to perform miracles, he makes everything around him better. The boy talks to the desert, wind, and sun through his heart so he can keep the

Sure he was scared and at times he thought he was alone, but he just kept thinking about those wise words people said to him, the ones he bumped into, and he kept going after his goal. It seemed like nothing could stop him, even if he was just a “shepherd” that didn’t stop him at all! The moral of the story is to follow your dreams and never give up on that. We don’t do that often, i mean sure we have dreams/goals but do we really go after them? It’s rare that we do, but that’s what “The Alchemist” is trying to teach us, and maybe we should chase our dreams no matter what the consequence is. What’s the conflict you may ask? Well, the conflict is Santiago’s troubles. For example, when he had no money, when he was starving, when he didn’t understand the language because he was far away from “home”. It was a struggle for him to make it through but the conflict did enhance on the story, big time. Without him struggling everything would be too easy and we all know that’s not true. You have to work hard for something you want to achieve, and he did work hard. Everyone always says “nothing is too easy” and this book shows that, that statement is true. There’s always a price or a

When Santiago firsts learns more about his recurring dream from an old gypsy woman, he doesn’t immediately take action. Without having any clue on how to get to Egypt, and remembering that “he had a number of things he had to take care of”, he decides not to follow through with the