The novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is about a young boy named Santiago who is trying to pursue his personal legend. Along the way he meets many people, sees many omens and faces many challenges. He has to discover the language of the world to be able to find his treasure, but little does he know the treasure is no ordinary thing. Sure, there was a chest of gold coins but he also gained knowledge of the soul of the world. Paulo Coleho uses characters including the crystal merchant, the gypsy woman, Fatima, and the Englishman to explore the theme that someone has to realize and pursue their personal legend to be truly happy.
Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist tells the story of Santiago a Shepard whose life changes once he finds out about a treasure from his frequent dreams and meets a strange man who helps him to start his personal legend. On Santiago’s journey he starts to see the hidden meanings behind daily life creating the thesis that through seeing and understanding symbols behind the world people can learn about their own personal legend and live life to the fullest. Santiago’s life starts out all about his sheep, he chose to be a shepherd, so he could travel and meet new people. Santiago’s job is to take care of the sheep, but the sheep have more meaning in the story. The sheep represent how he is comfortable in his life and how he is questioning his frequent dream, to sacrifice his comfortable life to find this treasure or to continue without taking the risk.
The Alchemist is a fantasy adventure book written by Paulo Coelho. It tells the story of a young Shepherd named Santiago, whose life changes after a conversation with an old gypsy and a king. He leaves his life of taking care of sheep to pursue his personal legend. The shepherd decides to go on the path of the Hero’s Journey. This path is structured in a certain way and has been accomplished by many other heroes in other stories.
In “The Alchemist”, Santiago, the main character has a dream of finding treasure at the Egyptian pyramids and finds it non coincidental that this dream has occurred twice. In that time period it would mean that his dream was an omen or a sign to make journey to go and find the mysterious treasure. According to scholar Maria Louw, “Dream omens embody peoples’ fears about, hopes for, how their lives may develop” (Louw 1). Santiago was encouraged by a gypsy who interpreted dreams and understood
Through talks of Abraham and the Quran, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho has an overlying theme of religion. The book follows the life of shepherd named Santiago and his journey throughout life as he wants to travel around the world, where he meets many people that give him advice on his journey. Like the prologue Narcissus story, The Alchemist itself has a message that is concentrating on oneself can unite a person to nature and the spiritual world. Only through single-mindedly attempting to reach his Personal Legend does Santiago learn the mysteries of the Soul of the World, for instance. Throughout the book, Santiago must put his attention first repeatedly, as when he decides to be a shepherd preferably than a priest and when he leaves the haven to continue on his journey.
The change in this book is that we should never give up in order to achieve our dreams. We should do that which gives us happiness internally if we are not able to get happiness from our work we should leave it and do something else which we are happy with. The main characters of this novel are: Santiago Santiago is the main character of the novel “The Alchemist”. He was born in a small town in Andalusia, Santiago attends the seminary as
In the book, the main character Santiago initially starts thinking that he would have still reached his goal without having to had give up his sheeps and going on a long journey. However, he realizes at the end that without the long travelled journey, he would have never met the love of his life, never would have understood the meanings of omens and signs, never would have met the alchemist, and would have also never seen the pyramids. This is something I, myself have also realized since I left my job to finally start a path of my own and I hold this value to my core. Having set a path of my own finally recently, while I believe having goals are important, I also would not have traded my experiences and processes over the past year. Without going through the process, not only would I not know how to start my own business, but I would also not have been able to meet the person I ended up marrying to, not have been able to rekindle relationships with family and friends, and not understand the feeling of immense gratitude and sense of achievement I do now with building new products I care about from scratch and watching them benefit other people’s lives.
In the book “The Alchemist” there is a young boy named Santiago he had a dream about pyramids and a treasure so he sets off the next day and is trying to discover and accomplish his Personal legend which is a big treasure full of coins. Santiago is a very faithful person he sets off into his adventure and with all the obstacles he goes through he never gave up. He is always finding ways to get through his problems and never stops. He even worked extra hard for the merchant so he could get more coins. Towards the end of the story he talks to Fatima and falls in love with her then he promised her he will come back for her.
The book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a fantasy volume that explores complex and interesting facets of human life and the human experience through the journey of a young boy named Santiago. Santiago is told by a Gypsy that he must travel to find treasure at the Pyramids of Egypt. While on his trip he discoveres many things and in the end learns what it is that he truly seeks. There are many themes in The Alchemist including that theme that all things are connected in some way. In the first half of the novel Santiago meets the king of Salem Melchizedek.
Based on the number of copies each book sold in past 50 years, “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is the fifth most read book in the world (Polland, 2012). "The Alchemist" received worldwide attention. The book is mainly about the journey of a guy named Santiago who is trying to achieve his personal legend which is what people have always wanted to accomplish (Coelho 1998, pg.22). In the book, Santiago faced many difficulties and fear of failure, but Santiago was able to overcome those hardships. Just like Santiago, people nowadays face many hardships or fear of failure that prevent them from achieving their own dreams.