The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho

The book I read is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is about a boy from Spain, whose name is Santiago and is a shepherd. The book tells how he gets around countries, and how he deals with his problems and how he solves them. It shows how he follows his dreams, and who helps him along the way.

When Santiago first arrives in Africa, he cannot speak Arabic. One morning, he runs across a boy setting up a shop and offers to help. The narrator says, “When [Santiago] had gone only a short distance, he realized that, while they were erecting the stall, one of them had spoken Arabic and the other Spanish. And they had understood each other perfectly well” (pg.43). Santiago thought, “There must be a language that doesn’t depend on words” (pg.43). This is the moment when Santiago first discovers the Universal Language. Santiago becomes more understanding of the Universal Language as he continues on his journey. He says, “I have watched the caravan as it crossed the desert…The caravan and the desert speak the same language” (pg.79). This evidently shows how Santiago is able to recognize what the Universal Language is, and how it works. Later in the novel, Santiago uses his knowledge of this language to help turn himself into the wind, saving his life. He asks the wind, “Just teach me to be the wind for a few moments” (pg.147). After speaking to both the desert and the wind, Santiago completely understands the Universal Language. Learning the Universal Language along his journey was very important to Santiago, because it ended up saving his

The blazing hot spotlights flick on. The theatre is silent, allowing me to hear the pounding of my heart. Heat radiating off of the light panels warms my face. I grin from ear to ear and whisper to myself, “I will remember this.” It was the friday night show of the orchesis concert, Mrs. Good had sat us down to tell us a story about a past student. Her student, Margaret, loved performing and lived for the rush of adrenaline when she stepped foot on stage. During her senior show, she whispered to herself, “I will remember this.” Fast forward three years, Margaret was walking through the quad of her college campus, the sun peered out behind the clouds and the angle the the sun hit her face brought back a rush of emotions and memories. We were all told this because she wanted us to never forget the feeling we got when we performed. “If you are rushing through the dance moves or caught up in the moment, pause and breathe, remember why you are on the stage in the first

Imagine the impact of helping someone when they need it. When you help someone, it can make someone’s day, or make them want to help someone else, including you. Because of this, not only you feel better but others will want to help you to. Characters who help someone will receive a benefit, even if they do not know it at the start. In the novel, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, Santiago learns, “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” First, good came after bad. Next, Santiago helps people who eventually help him. Last, important lessons make Santiago become a better person.

Everything is interconnected and deep down we all speak the same language. The Alchemist has many themes one of which is all creation speaks one language and the earth has a soul. It is important to know the language of the world so that one can understand how things happen.

The Alchemist is a novel first published in 1988 by Brazilian-born author Paulo Coehlo. It has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best selling books of all time, and has been translated in over 60 languages. The book follows an adventurous shepherd boy named Santiago who has recurring dream leads him on a journey to find hidden treasure. The book begins Santiago has the same troubling recurring dream, when sleeping under a sycamore that grows out of the ruins of a church, of a child telling him to seek treasure at the base of the Egyptian pyramids. After a gypsy tells him to go to Egypt once hearing his dream, a strange old man appears, claiming to be the King of Salem, tells him it is his

- When Santiago was in the pyramids then he was robbed again by the thieves that brought him to a near death experience.

“As soon as you begin to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.” Barbara Sher’s quote illustrates Paulo Coelho’s attempt in The Alchemist to raise the idea that individuals should pursue their Personal Legend and individual dreams. Coelhio uses a multitude of literary elements such as symbolism and setting as described by Thomas C. Foster in How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In The Alchemist, Coelho uses his characters as symbols to manifest his overall theme to engage in following your personal legend. The way Coelho’s illustrates his theme throughout his work can be interpreted as both realistic and problematic. Throughout Santiago’s journey along with personal experience, the reader can validate Coelho’s

before he decides to get married. He also learns more about love from her. He learns what love feels like, and what you do because of it. He learned what love feels like from her because when he first sees her, he feels as if time is standing still “At that moment, it seemed as if time stood still… When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke... It was love.” (Coelho 94). He also learns about what you do for love. She tells him to finish his journey before getting married even though she loves him back and probably wants him to stay, and that she would wait for him while he’s finishing his journey because she is a desert woman and the desert women are used to waiting. Another reason she told him to go is because she doesn’t want to hold him back and stop him from pursuing his personal journey and it's all because she loves him too.

Passage or Quotation from the Text Commentary “The people who come here have a lot of money to spend, so they can afford to travel.’ His father said. ‘Amongst us, the only ones who travel are the shepherds.’ ‘Well, then I’ll be a shepherd!’

　　　　Language is an essential part of our daily lives. Language is used to communicate with other people to meet our needs and satisfy our understandings. Everyone uses one language or another. Some have an advantage and are able to use

There are many obstacles in everyday life, but none as detrimental to ones future as fear. Fear can cause people to not only avoid achieving their goals in life but it also forces them to think about it throughout every day. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist shows that those who wallow in fear will never achieve their personal legend, and those who conquer fear will achieve anything they strive for. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a commonly analyzed and criticized piece of literature. One of these articles is Rejendra Kumar Dash’s “Alchemy of the Soul: A Comparative Study of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist”. Dash’s article is a literary criticism of the different parts of the character’s journey in The Alchemist.

The Alchemist is a novel written by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, originally written in Portuguese in 1988 and later translated to English in 1993, which follows the journey of Santiago on his quest to not only follow his Personal Legend, but also to discover a world full of changes and transformations. Looking at this story at first glance might give you the feel that it will be about a boy on a quest filled with the expected trials that test his heart, strength, and character. Elements like this are present, however, the story makes the reader think deeply about the motif dealing with following the signs the universe gives. This is due to various symbols and motifs, one having to do with omens, that Santiago and many characters

Personal Perspective is how an individual view the world around them, different people perceives different things and that could shape their personality. In the novel, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a boy who is a shepherd tries to seek a treasure in which he sees it in his dream. There are many obstacles that he has to overcome, he met numerous individuals along the way and learned valuable life lessons. People may grow differently depends on how they perceive the world, and if the way they comprehend the world changed, they could also change who they are as a

Globalization has also contributed to an increasing interest in English-language education worldwide. In response to the emergence of English as a world-linking, global language, an increasing number of schools have stepped up English–language requirements, even at undergraduate levels. The argument is that a universal teaching language is necessary as a natural consequence of globalization.