The Alchemist Essay

Response: From the start, the boy had fallen in love with Fatima. As you can see, the boy wanted to make sure Fatima knew his love for her and that he will come back. I think that love is one of those things that you cannot live without. Love is essential for one to survive. When the boy was on his long journey to the treasure, the thought of being able to go back to Fatima motivated him to conquer his quest.

Have you ever encountered problems while trying to fulfill a goal in your life? In the book The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho, a shepherd boy named Santiago overcomes obstacles to reach his personal legend. Throughout the book Santiago encounters many friends to help him fulfill his destiny. Santiago encounters many problems throughout the story. He overcomes them with the help of his friends and his wife-to-be. These problems shape Santiago into a dignified man of many traits.

Santiago made a reasonable sum of money working for the crystal merchant, and decided it was time to abandon his job to continue his search for his treasure. Along the way, he was halted by a tribal war in the desert and forced to stay in an oasis. During his visit he met a young woman named Fatima. After only a few interactions, Santiago decides he wants to marry this woman, “‘I came to tell you just one thing,’ the boy said. ‘I want you to be my wife. I love you’(Coelho, 95). What once was negative became positive. Santiago’s journey had been paused multiple times, and he was stuck in an oasis instead of venturing to the

When Santiago arrives in Tangier he is robbed by a thief and is forced to find work from the locals. He meets a crystal merchant and gets hired to work for him. Santiago convinces the merchant to take some risks in his business. This advice pays off and Santiago becomes a rich man in just a year. Santiago stars to gain confidence in his decisions and decides to use his earning to pursue his personal legend. Santiago soon joins a caravan crossing the Sahara desert and meets an Englishman who is studying to become an Alchemist. On the trip Santiago and the Englishman don’t converse much but Santiago still ends up learning a lot

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.

Santiago is a shepherd in Andalucia. He loves his flock, but they can't notice the limited nature of their existence. Seeking only food and water, they never lift their heads to admire the green hills or the sunsets. Santiago's parents have continually struggled for the basics of life. Santiago, on the other hand, can read and wants to travel. He goes into town one day to sell some of his flock, and encounters a tramp-king and a Gypsy woman. They urge him to 'follow his omens' and leave the world he knows. The Gypsy points him towards the Pyramids of Egypt, where she says he will find treasure. Crazily, he believes her. He sells his flock and sets sail. Sure enough, disaster is met early on when a thief in Tangier robs him of his savings. But

Not before long, Santiago meets a crystal merchant. Trying to run away from his Personal Legend once again, he gets a job at the

Throughout the book Full Metal Alchemist Edward and his brother Al are trying to find the philosopher’s stone. The philosopher's stone will help the brothers get back to normal. The brothers are motivated by determination of their past and the want to get back to normality. Throughout the book they use these methods to get through tough times and to keep pushing to find the philosopher's stone.

The Alchemist is a great meaningful Novel about following your personal legends. It was published by the famous Brazilian author Paulo Coelho in 1988. The Alchemist is about a young shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago dreams of traveling the world. In this book, the author delivers many strong and meaningful messages.

1. Santiago becomes a shepherd, rather than a priest as his parents desired. Why is this choice significant to the novel?

Soon after, Santiago is forced to work for a crystal merchant in the hopes of replacing his lost money and continuing on his quest. He works for the merchant for eleven months and during this time, continues to think less and less of his Personal Legend. He becomes skilled in this practice and begins to work towards instead, replacing his flock of sheep and returning to his past lifestyle. During this time, Santiago perceived reaching the pyramids as an impossible feat claiming “Egypt was now just a distant dream for him” and that, like a mirage, it would always be just out of his reach (56). In this way, Coelho shows that Santiago’s morale is lessening. The more that he stays at the crystal shop, the more he sees his treasure as a mirage instead of a physical object.

As one would make it through The Alchemist or The Stranger they would start to notice a clear separation of what each of these books portray. On one side you have The Alchemist which represents more of a positive outlook on life and following your dreams. On the other you have The Stranger which depicts more of a negative connotation on life. Although these two accounts seem far from each other, they present themes throughout the text that show up in both novels. A theme commonly noticed in both books is “love” and its effects on each books main character. Another is “the meaning of life”, which explains why we are here on this earth. The last is the idea of “destiny/fate”, which

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, a novel written by Paulo Coelho teaches us about the importance of self-discovery and exploration by taking us through the journey of a young Andalusian shepherd, Santiago. Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 24th 1947, to Pedro Quiema Coelho de Souza, an engineer, and his wife, Lygia, a homemaker. Paulo early on had dreamed of an artistic career and then after his surroundings in Jesuit school, he discovered his true vocation was to be a writer (Coelho 195). Upon telling his mom, she told him that his father was an engineer, a reasonable and logical man and had a clear view of the world. At the age of 16, Paulo’s opposition against following a traditional path led to his parents committing him into a mental institution (Paulo Coelho). To satisfy his parents, he enrolled in law school. However, it led him to mental illness and failing his career. After many years, he gave a shot at his dream profession and started to write. Paulo wrote The Pilgrimage: Diary of Magus which described his experiences and his discovery that the extraordinary occurs in the lives of ordinary people. He was the recipient of numerous international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. The Pilgrimage was published in 1987 and The Alchemist was published in 1988, a year after. Both novels appeared on the best sellers list but The Alchemist continued to sell more copies than any other book in Brazilian literary history. The Alchemist,

The Alchemist is an extraordinary book that reveals some of the secrets of the world we live in. It is a kind of story that makes realize that they need to work toward pursuing their Personal Legend. The determination of Santiago in the story urges me to follow and accomplish my Personal Legend as early as I can. The way the author portrayed the book, made me get lost in the book. The Alchemist depicts the good and evil of the world like the many people helping Santiago reach his dream and like thieves stealing all the gold and money from Santiago. The Alchemist an important part of our culture because it is not only teaching but inspiring many people to seek and achieve one's Personal Legend. Which most of us aren't doing that because we are