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Santiagos heros journey
Character of Santiago
Santiagos heros journey
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Point Of View
The point of view of the novel The alchemist by Paulo Coelho is written in Third person omniscient, which means it is written in third person but also shows and expresses the characters' thoughts, actions and words.This makes readers get a better understanding of what the main character Santiago was thinking, but also what the other characters are thinking as well. By writing in third person omniscient the audience(the readers) are able to get a better sense of what is going on in the novel rather than what the main character Santiago feels is taking place in the novel ; are also able to get a deeper sense of all the other characters and how they contribute and affect the main character journey.Although If this novel was
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The novel is written in present day and the time period is not stated in the novel .In the first few pages of the novel we are introduced to Andalusia , this is where the protoganist is from.It is located in an area in southern spain This is where the main Protoganist Santiago travels with his sheeps as a shepard . This is where the abandoned church is located ; santiago stays overnight ,where he sleeps under a sycamore tree and has a dream which is later on is his personal legend (page 3).The protagonist stays here for a night before we are introduced to another town Tarifa ,which plays a huge significance in the novel and the journey of santiago in pursuing his personal legend.Tarifa is a merchant town where Santiago sells his wool. He has taken an interest in the daughter of the merchants he sells his wool too.This city has a major influence on the novel because this is where santiago interprets his dream and readers are introduce to another character who has a major influence on santiagos decision to follow his personal legend and changes santiagos perspective of life; Melchizedek who claims he is the King of Salem.Santiago then travels to north africa , Tangier, Morocco to be exact. This is where santiago begins to pursue his personal legend, the main character loses his money, which resulted in him …show more content…
Santiago is a boy from the andalusia region of spain, his parents wished for him to be a priest. Santiago is a strong minded, driven, brave and inquisitive person. He is curious about the world ,so he goes against his parents wishes for him to be a priest and decided he’ll be a shepherd because they have the freedom he wants. He can be a bit naive especially when he travelled to tangier he was to quick in trusting the stranger he met at the tea shop who he called his new “friend”, said friend stole santiagos money.This is where santiagos strong will and guts are shown ; santiago gets a job at the crystal shop,where he gets the money needed to aid him in his journey in pursuing his dream (personal legend). Although the crystal merchant is not comfortable with his newfound success he allows santiago the freedom in running the store ,which helps santiago realises a lot of things such as witnessing the regrets of not following one's personal legend when he asked the crystal merchant why he did not go to Mecca , the merchant replied “ I’m afraid if my dream is realized, i’ll have no reason to go on living”.Throughout the novel the protagonist santiagos character develops and he meets people who influence in a great and help him pursue his personal legend
Santiago’s journey is influenced by the Crystal Merchant because the Merchant not only gives Santiago the skills, knowledge and money to keep going, but also inspires Santiago to continue on with his journey. The Crystal Merchant supplies Santiago with
(Coelho 26) For example, Santiago’s first true test was to decide to leave behind his flock of sheep on the rolling hillside and follow his heart for adventure and head to Egypt in search of unknown treasure. Deep within himself, Santiago is questioning life and the meaning of it. But, it is only through a series of trials, adversities, and successes, that he comes to find his “Personal Legend”. (Coelho 26) Throughout the entire process Santiago does not lose sight of his objective, he maintained his focus on reaching the end of his goal. The qualities that Santiago personified of fate, commitment, love, and listening to the omens are what Paulo Coelho is teaching his readers to examine regarding their own “Personal
Santiago thinks about his discussion with the old man. He is annoyed that the old man was right about his being on the verge of giving up just as he finds his destiny. Wandering around the city, he approaches a ticket seller, but he does not buy a ticket to Africa, where he knows the Egyptian pyramids are. He knows that he could buy a ticket with the money he could make from selling only one of his sheep. As he stands at the ticket window, he decides to go back to shepherding his flock. He muses that neither the old gypsy woman nor the old man understand what it means to have a flock of sheep depend on them.
At the beginning of his journey when he first set foot in the continent of Africa, he meets another man, who ends up robbing Santiago of all his money, which left him discouraged and he began doubting his decision. He ends up using the two stones given to him by a king, and he regains his inspiration and decides to continue on in search of his "Personal Legend". Another example of a time Santiago began abandoning his dreams was when he began working at the crystal shop in Tangier. He began building a comforting life with a routine. For about a year, Santiago put off ideas of achieving his goals, and he succumbed to the temptation to give
In the time he spent with the Crystal Merchant he realized that it is important to continue moving forward. He learned all that he could from his sheep, so he sold them and through the continuation of his journey he met new people and was taught new things. With his newly found understanding of the world, Santiago realizes that achieving one’s Personal Legend does not necessarily guarantee a treasure of material wealth, however, one will almost certainly acquire treasure in the form of personal
He doesn’t speak the language or know how the people in Africa act; he just knows that his treasure is in Egypt. His innocence and lack of awareness causes him to trust a young Arab boy, who ends up stealing all the money Santiago had, “The boy wanted to believe that his friend had simply become separated from him by accident.” (41) As a result, this causes Santiago to feel helpless and incapable of continuing his personal legend. He sees no point in continuing his journey and decides that he wants to go back to being a shepherd in Spain. However, Santiago remembers the Old King of Salem and his advice on following one's journey. He decides that he wants to continue in order to complete his Journey and not end up like the Baker, who awaits for a chance to accomplish his own journey. For this reason, Santiago is a hero because when tough obstacles come his way, he continues in hopes of finishing his journey and returning back home to his ordinary life and to the Merchant’s
The idea of a Personal Legend can mean different things to different individuals based on the life they have lived. For some, their legend may be to save a life, become a doctor, or even achieve happiness. It takes some people a longer time to find and achieve this legend, but I have been blessed to have realized my Personal Legend at a young age. My Personal Legend is to lead those who are lost to Christ and project God’s love with my helpfulness, advice-giving, and overall generosity as a person. The Alchemist somewhat reminded me of God’s power as my creator.
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...
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
Santiago, a young shepherd form Spain, repeatedly had a dream about a child leading him to The Pyramids in Egypt. He was confused about these experiences until he met The Gypsy Woman, who enlightens him about personal legends, how everyone has one destined and how some follow the path to the finale and some give up or ignore realizing theirs. Santiago, being a brave
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. With a greedy heart he runs away with all the coins in order to protect himself, and hopefully his family. Here the boys survival methods almost vanquished the hope in Santiago’s heart, but in the end he was able to pull through. The merchant is similar to Lord of the Flies as it is hope(and dreams) that keep these characters moving in life. However some characters may be similar, there is a clear and defined line between Santiago and the boys on the island. It is easy to tell that the light and hope has disappeared from the boys’ hearts after the murder of Simon, but Santiago is able to get back up and keep going on his
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 conflict in the novel that most intrigued me was between Santiago and himself. Throughout the novel he almost gave up hope of ever finding his treasure. When he was robbed in the market place...
... 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.