The Personal Legend Of Melchizedek's The Alchemist

Despite heroes being their own individual characters, they are all represented by a common theme. For example, in the book, The Alchemist the hero, Santiago, takes a journey from his beginnings in Spain to reaching his own Personal Legend, despite his many obstacles. Santiago relates to the big idea in this novel, by overcoming the many hardships, journeys, and sacrifices he endured to reach his destiny. Therefore, the universal theme of “Achieving one’s destiny, creates great sacrifices,” is shown in the novel, through the many hardships heroes endure, the sacrifices they make, and the journey they take to reach their destiny.

Social isolation is a social issue where people avoid contact with one society. They are commonly seen nowadays preventing people from interacting with another as well as creating reliable relations, abating any chances for one to realize their destiny. This negative spiral immensely affects the opportunity for people holding a feeling of love and community toward others.

“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

In the book there are a lot of characters, but the main characters are Santiago, The Alchemist, Fatima, Englishman and the Crystal Merchant. I am choosing to write the Analysis on Santiago, he is the protagonist. Santiago is a shepherd from Spain, he kept on having a recurring dream about a treasure in the Egypt. He was determined to find his treasure and learn about the world. His parents wanted him to become a priest, but instead became a Shepherd because of his desire to travel throughout the country. Santiago was hesitant at first, but it all changed when he met a king from Salem, he explained about omens and powers of nature. This quote was the inspiration “And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language,

All stories consist of a similar structure of stages, ranging from using a couple to all twelve, that help the protagonist in their journey to better themselves or others. The sole concept of this is called a Hero’s Journey. Now in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, the whole plot is based off of the hero’s journey. The protagonist, Santiago, goes through all twelve stages in his quest to reach his personal goal which ultimately makes The Alchemist a great example for the hero’s journey. In the book, Coelho introduces Santiago as a boy who is a shepard that was raised to be a priest. He is pleased being a sheep herder but is also fond of wanting to travel and dreams of finding a treasure. This starts off the “ordinary life” stage thus followed

Throughout the book “The Alchemist”, Santiago faces many trials on his journey to Egypt to find the treasure. He is able to follow all the steps of the Hero’s Journey, starting with the call to adventure and finishing with the status quo. Santiago may have started his journey in Spain and made his way to Egypt but key points through this book include the status quo, threshold, and the abyss.

Some may refer to The Alchemist as a best-selling novel written by Paulo Coelho which explains the ideas of having a dream, or Personal Legend, and going through obstacles to conquer it. The book starts off like any other, introducing and describing the main characters, in this case Santiago is the first to share the interest of peers reading the story. He is said to be a small town shepherd boy who will do anything for his flock of sheep. In the opening scene of the story, Santiago takes his flock to an abandoned church and lies down under a sycamore tree hoping to get some rest. He is soon woken up from a disturbing dream which foreshadows further into the story of his own Personal Legend. Later in the book, Santiago is faced with multiple tests to be successful in finding his treasure. “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure” (Coelho 15). Paulo continues to add characters in the book that help Santiago throughout his journey.

The alchemist is a well written book that accurately describes every concept about life and explains it through a story. The Alchemist is a book about a shepherd named Santiago, who discovers his personal legend and receives help from others to help achieve his Personal Legend and learns many major life lessons along the way. Santiago gets advice that when life puts him down, keep getting back up and to focus on the task at hand, which is Santiago’s own personal legend. Along the the journey, Santiago receives help from many different characters but only three characters who helped him the most throughout his quest for his Personal legend is the alchemist, the Old King and the Englishman. The best advice a reader is able to gain from this story is the advice the the Old King taught Santiago, which is” there is only one thing that makes achieving a dream impossible to achieve, the fear of failure” which means is to never be afraid of failures and to follow your own path God has laid out for you because if you are too afraid to pursue your personal legend, meaning if people are too afraid to take risks to make their own life better than it already is now, then they will not have the opportunity to accomplish their own goals. In Coelho's The Alchemist, Santiago learns the Soul of the World through experience, patience, time and help from the Old King, the Englishman and the alchemist.

The first significant person to direct Santiago to his personal legend was the King of Salem. The King of Salem is the character that introduces Santiago to his personal legend and what a personal legend is. Through this it adjusts Santiago’s path and desires to find out what the Old King was talking about. “None of what the old man was saying made much sense to the boy. But he wanted to know what the “mysterious force was;” (22). By this little spiel from the Old King Santiago takes a turn in his life. He suddenly is curious about this “hidden treasure” and is determined to find out more. If Santiago never met the King of Salem then he never would've known about his personal legend and continued to meet other important characters in his life. The Old King also encouraged the belief of omen to the boy through the use of white and

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." (Coelho 22). The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, revolves around a boy named Santiago, who goes on a quest to find his Personal Legend. However, it is not the universe, but one character that conspires to assist Santiago, allowing him to surmount obstacles and achieve his dreams. That character is named Melchizedek, and he appears very briefly at the beginning of the story in order to guide Santiago. Although brief, his appearance sets the theme of the story, his intervention initiates the actions that occur, and sets Santiago on his live changing journey.

Santiago, a shepherd boy from a small Andalusian town, is the main character of The Alchemist. Curious and determined, Santiago was born an explorer and wanted to learn about the world. In the beginning of the Alchemist, Santiago went against his parent’s wishes to become a priest and chose to instead work as a shepherd so he could travel throughout the country. Despite his thirst for adventure, Santiago remained satisfied with his lifestyle until he had numerous dreams of uncovering treasure hidden in the Pyramids of Egypt. At first, Santiago is hesitant about pursuing his dream, even going to a gypsy to define what his dream meant. His confidence still wavered, until receiving a second opinion from Melchizedek, a mysterious old man who claims to be the king of Salem. After Melchizedek informs Santiago about the mystic ways of the world, Santiago becomes interested in fulfilling his Personal Legend and sets off to Egypt.

The second half of the book begins Santiago after he has spent a month working for the crystal merchant. He offers to build a display case for some crystals. However, the merchant declines stating that people will knock over the stand. Santiago sees himself as an omen and tells the merchant that he should take advantage of the beginner's luck while he has it. Time passes and business has increased. One day Santiago overhears a tourist complaining about thirst after climbing the hill. Santiago then suggests that they sell tea out of the glasses. He sees this as an opportunity to make extra money from tea and glass sales. A year passes and business is good Santiago can afford plenty of sheep, but he realizes that instead of returning home he

The Alchemist is a journey of exploration and self-discovery as we follow the main character, Santiago, a young shepherd who lives in Spain, on a journey to fulfill his personal legend. The novel shows us wisdoms and gentle reminders of how to change our lives from what they may be today into the life we have always dreamed of.

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,

Young boy Santiago is a shepherd because he knows what he wants. In “The Alchemist” Santiago changes in many ways and learns many things from the start to the end of the book. Santiago is going to a village as a shepherd and in the meantime, he is staying in an abandoned church. When he is sleeping he keeps having a reoccurring dream, so he explains it to a gypsy woman. The woman says that he will find a treasure in the pyramids in Egypt. Later, he meets an old man that tells him that to he has to listen to omens to find his treasure. He also gives Santiago stones that will tell him what to do. Santiago sells his sheep to find his hidden treasure, however, when he is going he gets robbed, and he has to work at a glass shop to get money again. When he gets enough money to cross the desert and go to the pyramids, he meets a caravan about to cross the desert. On their way to the other side of the desert, they figure out that war is going on in the middle of the desert, so they have to stop for a long time until the war is over. Since Santiago