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The alchemist and love
Dreams and reality in the novel the alchemist
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Maxwell Maltz once said “The 'self-image' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.” In the realistic fiction book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho there was a boy named Santiago, who’s character changes through out the book. In the beginning of this book, Santiago is just a shepherd in Spain that lives day to day from his sheep. He cared for each of them until he found out about his personal legend. A physic told him that he had to go to Egypt by the pyramids to look for his treasure. From there he went to the north western tip of Africa and had to stay to regain his strength in one of the cities. There he met a crystal merchant, after working for him for a year, …show more content…
Over time, he started believing in all sorts of things that he may have never heard of if he hadn’t followed his personal legend. “So the boy was disappointed; he decided that he would never again believe in dreams” (Coelho 15). This passage took place in the beginning of the story, Santiago was disappointed in what had occurred when the woman was interpreting her dream. In that, it made him not believe in what was happening in the “spiritual world”. It took a lot to make the boy start believing, and eventually, never stop. The King was the one who saved Santiago from turn down his personal legend, “ ‘They are called Urim and Thummim. The black signifies ‘yes’, and the white ’no’. When you are unable to read the omens, they will help you to do so …’ ”(Coelho 30). After his conversation with the king, he believes in anything that will have to do with his personal legend. From not being a dreamer, and then not only becoming a dreamer but to then follow where the dream tells him can be seen as a very big character …show more content…
However, Santiago did Change due to his beliefs, and how he is able to love a person. Since these things change in this character, Santiago was able to go on his journey because he believed the king. Also, because of his new perception of love, he was able to talk to the desert, wind, the sun, and the ‘hand that wrote it all’, and eventually turn himself into the wind so he wouldn’t die from the tribal ruler. He needed to love because he needed to get back to Fatima. These traits were made because of the journey from Spain to the pyramids. This happened in the realistic fiction book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Like Maxwell Maltz once said “The 'self-image' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the
In The Alchemist Paulo Coelho presents a character, Santiago, torn between following tradition and his Personal Legend. Santiago tries to live true to his Personal Legend, which is a path pursued by those who strive to fulfill their purpose in life. Yet throughout the novel tradition, a motif, presents itself as a roadblock holding Santiago back from reaching his dreams. Coelho juxtaposes tradition against Personal Legend to illustrate its purely individual nature and the necessity of the acceptance of change to reach one’s dreams and goals.
In the novel, The Alchemist, Santiago is an archetypal hero who embarks on the most common forms of a hero’s journey. From when he received his calling from his dream, the gypsy woman, and the king, his denial and refusing of the call with his thoughts of assurance of a stable livelihood, his acceptance and beginning of adventure, his help throughout the ways with the aid of the mystical alchemist, to finally the trials that he faces from the start to the conclusion. Therefore, so Santiago is what now, and always has been considered to be the all-known hero.
Curiosity drives the decisions Santiago makes to understand his personal legend. Even in the beginning of the book Santiago shows curiosity by becoming a shepherd. Santiago’s father wanted him to become a priest, but Santiago’s desire and curiosity to travel motivated him to become a shepherd since Santiago did not have much money to travel for fun. During Santiago’s travels, he has a recurring dream and curiosity led him to try and get an interpretation of his dream by meeting with the gypsy. While meeting with the gypsy, he ignores the negative reputation gypsies have in order to understand his dream due to his naive and curious nature. In addition to that, the old man offers to help Santiago if the old man receives half of his flock. Driven by curiosity, Santiago sells his sheep and gives the old man half of his flock in an effort to understand his dream and discover his personal legend. If Santiago was not curious, he would not have sold his sheep in an attempt to become closer to his treasure. When Santiago first met the alchemist, he shouted, “Where do you live?...The hand with the whip pointed to the south” (Coelho 117). Soon after this occurrence, Santiago went off in search of the alchemist’s home. Once Santiago found the alchemist, Santiago accepted the alchemist’s welcome into his house. Santiago’s curiosity led him into the alchemist’s tent with very little contemplation.
In the novel The Alchemist it tells a story of a boy who is in search of his Personal Legend. A Personal Legend is the means in which a person can live a satisfying life, in other words ones destiny in life. As the novel states the only way to achieve perfection is if all natural things continuously undergo a cycle of achieving their Personal Legend, evolving into a higher being with a new Personal Legend, and then pursuing that new goal. This concept, that the individualistic pursuit of a Personal Legend exists as life’s dominant—perhaps only—spiritual demand, lies at the center of the unique theology of The Alchemist. As we see when Santiago must give up his flock, material success and even love pose obstacles to Santiago achieving his Personal
The first two obstacles that Santiago faces are that his father tells him he can not do something that he wants to do and that he wants to pursue his personal legend, but he does not want to hurt those that he loves. For example, Santiago’s father said, “The people who come here have a lot of money to spend, so they can afford to travel. Amongst us the only ones who can travel are shepherds.” Everyone is told by their parents and friends that everything we want to do is impossible. Since Santiago did not have money to spend to travel his only choice was then to become a shepherd to fulfill his desire. T...
In the beginning of the book, Santiago travels to visit a Gypsy who is said to be able interpret his recurring dream. As a child he had always heard stories about Gypsies capturing children, taking them to their camps and making them their slaves. These stories translated into one of his largest fears for Santiago as a child and that fear returned when he visited the Gypsy, “As a child, the boy had always been frightened to death that he would be captured by Gypsies, and this childhood fear returned when the old woman took his hand” (17). The Gypsy eventually tells Santiago that there is treasure located at the Egyptian Pyramids. Without being able to overcome his fears of Gypsies, Santiago may have never went on a journey to Egypt in order to achieve his personal legend. Another example in the book that shows Santiago overcoming his fears is while Santiago and the Alchemist are travelling towards the Pyramids. They are suddenly captured by a desert tribe at war, who mistakes them for spies. In order to save his life Santiago has to turn himself into the wind. Coelho states, “But the boy was too frightened to listen to words of wisdom. He had no idea how he was going to transform himself into the wind” (83). Two days later Santiago is standing in front of the tribal chieftains trying to turn himself into the wind. He is able to stay calm while his life is on the line and
Santiago was different because he believed in God, and prayed to him for help throughout the story. While he was at sea, he often prayed that he would get the fish or that he would live to see the fish brought to the village. Santiago did not fear death and the reader senses that Santiago believes that if he dies, he will go to heaven. The story is also filled with many biblical references and the whole book has a religious theme. Hemingway does not usually have his code heroes be religious, and most of them feel that they only have this time on earth and they had better make the best out of it.
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. He talks about, in his article, how the theme in The Alchemist is found through analyzing the different parts of Santiago’s journey and what those parts mean. Another one of these articles is Lily Hasanah’s “Decision Making in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist”. Hasanah’s article is a literary criticism of the main character in The Alchemist, Santiago. She searches for the theme in The Alchemist through analyzing the decisions, and the outcomes of those decisions, made by Santiago. Paulo Coelho provides access to his theme, for the most part, though the actions and adventures of the main character, Santiago. Although this is the method of delivery he had in mind, Dash and Hasanah view the delivery of his theme differently.
Santiago is a shepherd trying to pursue his personal legend. His personal legend is the recurring dream about the hidden treasure at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids. In his dream he starts playing in a field with his sheep, when a child appeared and began to play with the animals. This was strange to him because sheep are afraid of strangers, but the sheep and children play along just fine. Then a child grabbed his hands and took him to the foot of the Egyptian pyramids. He begins his journey locally trying to find answers from a gypsy and a man named
He first struggles internally when he wants to understand the dream he is having repeatedly. During the call to adventure in the hero’s journey, Santiago heads to an old gypsy in order to understand the dream he has. However, after listening to the interpretation, Santiago decided to “never again believe in dreams” because the gypsy only told him things he had already known (Coelho 17). This internal struggle, which sets the stage for the rest of Santiago’s struggles, had restrained Santiago for some time because he wasn’t able to pursue his personal legend if he didn’t believe in it, However, he later overcomes this struggle and continues on his path to achieving his personal legend. Santiago struggles internally later when he meets with the chief of a camp in the desert who tells him that he wants to see him turn into the wind. The alchemist, a man Santiago met to help him achieve his personal legend, told the chief that Santiago will be able to turn himself into the wind to show his powers, and if he can’t, “[they’ll] humbly offer [them] [their] lives” (Coelho 145). Santiago has never turned himself into the wind, so he has to dig deeply within in order to find the
He remains hopeful, and he makes sure to stay true to himself and follow his inner omens. Back at the merchant’s shop, Santiago is willing to help him live his dream out. The merchant’s dream is to travel to Mecca one day, but when Santiago tries to help him achieve this goal, he will not budge. His only hope in life is to go to Mecca, so feels that is he goes there, he would simply lose the will to live as he has no more hope. We do however, see the survival instincts kick in of the young boy who steals Santiago’s money.
Santiago is a heroic figure because he was always kind to others. He was always helping someone with something. For example: when Santiago was working at the Crystal shop, he helped the Crystal Merchant, improve his business. When Santiago was leaving the Crystal Shop, the merchant stated “You brought a new feeling into my Crystal Shop”(61). The Crystal Merchant is talking about how much Santiago has changed his business. Santiago has helped the merchant’s business by making a display case to put outside the store, cleaning all the crystal and adding new things, such as the tea. Santiago also helped an Englishman by helping him find the Alchemist. The Englishman wanted to speak to an alchemist. The Englishman stated “I need you to help me find out where the alchemist lives”(90). Because the Englishman requested for help, Santiago helped him. It took over half a day to find the alchemist, but fi...
Santiago is, undoubtedly, crafted as a Christ figure, from his innocence to his crucifixion. His innocence is derived from the narrator’s doubt and the doubt invoked in the reader, that Santiago deflowered Angela prior to her marriage; he is murdered for this reason. In the novella, Santiago attempts to flee from Pedro and Pablo Vicario once he realizes that they are out to kill him; unfortunately, he does not make it into the safety of his home. As the stabbing progresses, Santiago stops defending himself and lets the brothers continue “knifing him against the door with alternate and easy stabs” (Márquez 118). With the surrender of Santiago, the entire town became horrified “by its own crime” (Márquez 118).
Santiago is a complex character who learns a lot through the course of this story. He is a very good, humble man and loves Manolin, his apprentice. Santiago is a poor man and is regarded as bad luck by others because he was not caught a single fish in 84 days. One cannot help feel sorry for him because he is very alone. His wife died and the book suggested that he never had any children. Yet he was humble and did not complain at all about his hard life. Santiago is a very persistant and determined character. He fought the huge marlin that he had caught for three agonizing days desopite feeling intense pain. He often had contradictory feelings and thoughts. One that I found strange was when he felt sorry for the marlin while he joyfully pondered how much money he would get for selling the fish.
... the character of Santiago. He is not as determined as Ahab when it comes to his own nature. He is able to accept that humility and love do not take away his pride and in fact they are life sustaining. Ahab cannot give up the only thing he knows, his passions. Knowledge does not come in the face of a world that remains as mysterious and evil when we leave it as it was when we entered it. For Santiago, there is some measure of relief from the indifferent universe through the interdependence of human beings. Ahab never finds this measure of relief. Yet, they both retain some measure of dignity because they know they cannot conquer the universe but they do not let it conquer them either.