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Alchemist by paulo coelho summary
An essay on the theme of The Alchemist
Alchemist by paulo coelho summary
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The alchemist is a book about a young boy, Santiago, who travels and takes on the challenge of achieving his personal legend. The main theme throughout his journey was going through thick and thin yet still being able to complete his personal legend.The conflict of the story is the tough quest that was presented to him. Despite how difficult the journey was, the boy was determined to acquire his treasure. The boy enjoyed traveling and meeting new lands, so he decided to be a shepherd. That soon changed when he was told by a gypsy that there was treasure awaiting him near the pyramids of Egypt, and that was the moment the boy realized his personal legend. Then the boy met a king who told him about what was to come and gave the boy two stones,
"The Alchemist" is a novel written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho in 1988. It tells the story of an Andalusian shepherd known as Santiago and his journey of fulfilling his "dream" which he names his "Personal Legend". Throughout his voyage, he met many different people and was forced under many different circumstances, and we are able to experience his emotional states throughout every part of his journey. He undergoes many revelations, and we could argue he becomes wiser and more aware of the spiritual value which everything in the world possesses. He ends up finding his "Personal Legend", but despite actualizing his "dream", he was a victim to the negative emotions that come with being human, and therefore we could argue that the main conflict in "The Alchemist" is within Santiago himself.
The Alchemist was a great book about a young boy, Santiago, who wanted to travel the world. In the beginning of the book Santiago’s family wanted him to become a priest, but Santiago wanted to travel the world. Santiago’s father told him that the only people that travel the world are the rich and shepherds. When Santiago heard the information he then told his father he will become a shepherd. In response to his son’s decision, he gave his son one gold coin to buy his flock of sheep. As time went on Santiago began having a dream, a dream that he kept having. Eventually he met a merchant that he sold his wool to once a year. The boy had fell in love with the merchant’s daughter and the next year the dream was finally going to
In our own journeys some of us know how to make decisions on our own, but some people depend on other to make their decisions for them. Making our decisions makes us transform into having a different personality for the better because it means you have potential in being independent. Along the same lines, the novel The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is a story that is taking place in Andalusia where a young man named Santiago, a shepherd, who travels to reach his Personal Legend. He is a very hardworking person, responsible, and he’s also very determined to do anything he would like to achieve. He is very independent and is willing to make his own decision to help him achieve his Personal Legend. Santiago is also described as a powerful Alchemist;
Alchemist follows the spiritual journey of Santiago, who is a shepherd. He travels from Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the pyramids. On his journey, he meets a Gypsy woman, a king, and an alchemist. These people help Santiago to find treasure, and demand a price. The treasure is unknown, and he finds love along the way. The Alchemist is a wise book, which combines spirituality, religion, dreams and power.
With right and wrong themes in the literature, the one theme that really stood out was “the dreams are the central of The Alchemist actions as well as its meaning”.
As I sat on edge of my bed, questioning all of my thoughts and caught in a storm of overthinking, “I got it!” I said, “I want to become an astrophysicist!” A tornado swept away my dream of becoming an architect and crushed my attitude towards becoming an astronaut...and I couldn’t have been happier. My whole life, nothing has been more confusing to me than my future. I pondered and pondered about what it is I wanted to do, and in doing so, I found a purpose for myself. However useful or useless life may be, I knew I could make something of it, and now the astrophysics has become a part of my identity. I spent hours studying the latest on black holes and understanding exotic particles and other space quandaries. I read 32 hours worth
In the start of the novel, he is perfectly complacent with life as a nomad, with very little monetary worth. He has no qualms about marrying a girl he just likes and has met once, and prides himself for his reading abilities and understanding sheep. His whole identity is centered around sheep and not much else. He lacks life experience as anything other than a shepherd. Even though he has traveled along the land of his home country, his view of the world is limited to where his sheep can travel. After the events in the book, and the final resolution to the most important conflict, he has an entirely new focus and perspective. He has someone he truly loves, he has traveled to lands so far away he has to learn a new language to adapt, he has a deeper spiritual connection to the world, more than his relationship with his sheep could ever provide. Because of his solution to the conflict of making a choice, he develops as a character and becomes well-rounded as a person. Even if he never found the treasure in the end, he still would have been successful in resolving the conflict because of what he achieved and learned, because he no longer fears taking risks for the sake of something larger than himself because “fear of failure” was the true antagonist of the novel. The most important conflict in The Alchemist is Santiago’s choice between going after the treasure and settling; and his solution to pursue the treasure is successful not only because he acquires the gold at the end of the convoluted journey of a rainbow, shaped by fate and followed through belief, but also because throughout it all, he starts his adventure as a boy, but ends it as a
Santiago- Is the main character of The Alchemist. He travels from Andalusia in southern Spain to the Egyptian pyramids to search for a hidden treasure, learning life lessons along the way. He is very faithful, perseverant, and hardworking.
The Alchemist brings up one common theme throughout the book, that all people have a Personal Legend that should be followed. A Personal Legend can be described as one's purpose that he/she is internally driven to accomplish in life. It is the personal calling of every individual. All the characters in the story had a Personal Legend they either followed or left behind. The characters that chose not to follow their Personal Legend lived with regret and the ones that did were rewarded for their hard work and determination. However, following your Personal Legend will often lead to challenges that must be faced in order to reach these rewarding end results. Throughout the story each characters had to either face the reality of their everyday
Santiago, a strange old man, has gone 84 days without catching a fish and wants to catch one last big fish. People in his village have began to view him as Salao, or unlucky, and his best friend, a young boy named Manolin, has even began to stop fishing with him because his parents say he won't catch a fish with him. Santiago wants to break this long streak so he goes fishing very far out in his skiff and sees a large man of war bird and goes to it because he knows that it is catching fish and wants to go see what its getting. He then catches a Tuna. Then he continues to go out and hooks a huge fish. He then gets ready to pull it in and it does not budge, this is when he realizes he in for a long journey. The fish, or the Marlin, begin to
In the Alchemist, Santiago the main character finds himself on a journey that led him to Egypt. Santiago had many influences on his life throughout his journey to Egypt, for example these three people, Melchizedek, the Crystal Merchant and Fatima. Each person had an important role that resulted in influencing him.
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, has a very interesting theme. It’s about how luck and fortune are one and the same and how everything around the boy helps him to achieve his destiny. But how does this theme change and develop in the book? Imagery is often shown as omens throughout the book and help develop the theme. But primarily, the supporting characters help the boy in the story. The theme of luck and fortune develops throughout each character's personal destiny, it is shown not by what their fortune is but by how they get it. They all help and are related to the main character’s, Santiago's, destiny.
A Book Report on: The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho Biography of Author - Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janiero in 1947 and before his career as a best-selling author, he was a playwright, theatre director, hippie, and popular songwriter for some of Brazil's leading pop artists. In 1986 he took a pilgrimage along that Road of Santiago and this would be the center of the plot of the book, The Pilgrimage, which was published in 1987. His second book was named The Alchemist and was published in 1988. This book has gone to number one in 29 countries and Coelho has been regarded as the most widely read contemporary writers. The Alchemist was one of the top ten international best sellers of 1998. His work has been published in more than 100 countries and is translated into 42 different languages. He has been awarded a variety of prestigious awards from many different countries. He today lives in South America with his family. Main Characters - The Shepherd - This was the boy through whose eyes the story was told. He followed his personal legend to the fullest and never let up with his dream. He went all over the land and was able to realize the treasure that he had been so close to in the beginning of the novel. The King - He was the one that gave the shepherd the two stones that would supposedly help him whenever he had a rough time deciding about what to do. He made the boy give him ten percent of his flock, because you should never promise something that you don't have. The Englishmen - This was the man that the boy met on his trip to the pyramids. He was the one who turned the boy onto the idea of the alchemist and the masterwork. Before this he had never known of the alchemist and the great things that he could do in the world. The ...
The alchemist “you don’t have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a single grain of sand”
A journey is a composition of music. Different instruments come together to play different strings of notes that harmoniously combine to create a symphony. Santiago, the main protagonist from the Alchemist, experiences many symphonies on his road to realize his Personal Legend. His experiences guided him to his goal and when he had finally achieved it, the story came to a close. The ending of the novel was (opposite of unexpected) and satisfying. Paulo Coelho left his audience with a satiating end to a long story. The ending of the story fitted perfectly with the book because it enhanced the idea of the Soul of the World, the cycles of life, and overall these ideas all came with realizing his Personal Legend.