Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Main themes in the alchemist
Literary devices and their effects
Main themes in the alchemist
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
A personal legend is the idea that our lives are predestined by the gods and we have a legend we all must follow to live a fulfilling life, Except you don’t. The novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho uses personal legends as a plot device, the main character’s drive to keep going is that he will reach his personal legend and fulfill his life. The problem is that to fulfill your life you do not need to achieve your personal legend. You do not even need a personal legend. Fulfillment is relative from person to person, but one condition remains, happiness. If you want a fulfilling life you don’t need to follow your dreams, you just need to be happy with your stake in life.
In the novel, Santiago’s father is a prime example of not needing to fulfill your personal legend to live a fulfilling life. Santiago’s father is a farmer, and though his
…show more content…
An argument could be that Santiago’s father doesn’t live a fulfilling life because he still desired to travel the world. Except by giving Santiago the gold coins to become a shepherd, He is vicariously fulfilling his dream through his son. Santiago’s father helped Santiago meet his personal legend, and in that he has fulfilled his own life. You might say that the baker is going to fulfill his personal legend of travelling eventually. The baker may travel eventually, but he has already led a fulfilling life. He has a shop, a good stake in life, likely a family. The baker fulfilled his life to reach his dream of travelling. In conclusion you do not need to fulfill your personal legend, to have a fulfilling life. All you need to do is be happy and content with your life, and you have fulfilled it.
You don’t need to travel the world, as long as you are fine with your stake in life. If you don’t drop everything to achieve your personal legend you can live a safe life. A life where you don’t need to wonder where your next meal comes from. A solid fulfilled
One’s life is a personal venture. From the day of birth, people set goals and
...nyone tries, the individual must make his own decisions, and decide what type of life he or she may live, and they must try to achieve authenticity, even when the present situation is difficult, their attitude will help them achieve this purposeful life.
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.
...ng a lonesome and bland life, when I can shape my future now and become the man I want to be. Although Destiny has already laid out my path, I will grow as Jim did and realize that the power of the individual and Destiny can work together only if you believe in it. Jim learned this lesson too late, and paid the price of misery and living forever thriving off of his memories.
...tion can be achieved from many perspectives, but the best one is achieved only through our own experiences. For Berry, it was hauling manure and enjoying the “natural consequences of working outdoors” that made him a happy worker. While for me, it was learning to fix and maintain a bike myself that left a thrilling legacy in which I am still proud of today.
Success: Accomplishing Your Dream Completing the "American Dream" is a controversial issue. The American Dream can be defined as having a nice car, maybe two or three of them, having a beautiful, healthy family, making an impact on the world, or even just having extra spending money when the bills are paid. In the play "Death Of A Salesman," by Arthur Miller, the "American Dream" deals with prosperity, status, and being immortalized.
Wolf’s “The Meanings of Lives”, states a meaningful life must have some subjective and objective element to it and must be somewhat successful; Wolf’s idea of subjectivity is that projects and activities eventually make life meaningful. The projects must fulfill certain circumstances on the subjective and objective side. I’m going to introduce Wolf’s “fitting fulfillment” idea, raise a point against it and argue her idea, that success defines a meaningful life.
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
In the book the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Santiago’s call to adventure was to travel the world , experience life, and find his hidden treasure. This meant he would stop at nothing until he achieved so. This troublesome stage is a period where santiago is tested to grab his dream before it leaves without him.“I’m not going to charge anything now, but I want one tenth of the treasure if you find it.”This stage was very confusing for Santiago because he didn’t know why or how foreign people knew about his personal legend. Santiago chooses to pursue his legend due to a fortune-seer’s knowledge. This significance of this stage so prominently prone to santiago’s view from the inside, he finally chose to go because he knows that everything happens
Coelho incorporates many internal struggles into Santiago’s life in order to prove that they don’t restrain people from achieving their personal legend. Through the use of the hero’s journey, Santiago faces many internal struggles such as when he attempts to understand
"They come in search of new things, but when they leave they are basically the same people they were when they arrived. They climb the mountain to see the castle, and they wind up thinking that the past was better than what we have now. They have blond hair, or dark skin, but basically they're the same as the people who live right here." Santiago’s father is saying that no matter how much Santiago travels, or how much of the world he sees he will come back the same person. Santiago’s father is an important person in his life. Without his father believing in him Santiago might not believe in himself either. Santiago seems to know what he wants in life, but with his father practically telling him it is wrong he might not succeed. Santiago needs others believing in him or he will not have the motivation to succeed in finding the treasure. Not only does Santiago need others believing in him, but he needs to believe in himself as
“ Where your treasure is, there also will be your heart”(159). This is what the alchemist said to the main character. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, tells a story of a boy named Santiago, who goes on a long journey to discover his personal legend. As Santiago goes on his journey to pursue his personal legend, he is faced with many challenges, as well as left to make difficult decisions that change him forever. As Santiago travels the world, he becomes a hero. In The Alchemist, Santiago shows characteristics, as well as archetypal characteristics that make him a hero. Santiago displays kindness, bravery and wisdom; also he is considered a hero because he displays many characteristics of an archetypal hero. He displays archetypal characteristics such as: receiving supernatural help, proving himself many times and receiving an apotheosis.
In conclusion, the two characters in The Alchemist and Kon-Tiki share similarities in their stages of human development, encountering troubles, and getting help from other source. These supporting details illustrate the universality of the characteristics of mythic heroes.
With all aspects of relating the meaning of life to ones personal setting, one can find themselves still with more questions then answers. This is one aspect all discussed situations have in common. We may have found a true meaning, but it always becomes questionable as to if the right decisions were made and the right paths taken base on the outcomes that follow. Although one may never find themselves with a true understanding for the biggest ‘why’ question of them all, the pursuit is always life changing. Life has, for most, always been a choice of free will, to do with what you please. Some choose to embrace this fact and pursue meaning never once imagined, and some choose the more comfortable, yet unsatisfying one of someone already travelled.
The world is a magnificent place that’s full of life and new places. Places that are waiting to be walked upon and viewed by the eye’s of travelers. To make new memories and go places that is beyond the walls of reality and new pathways of life. To truly experience the wonders that the world has to offer can be expressed by the life of one single person, setting off into the world to gain a higher purpose about the world. Traveling individually enables people to broaden their minds and accumulate new ideas and new experiences both nationally and internationally. By setting off into the world a person has the ability to learn so many new things, but also find so much about themselves while in the process of traveling.