Free Will In Paulo's The Alchemist

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In the book The Alchemist, Maktub is an Arab word which has been imparted to Santiago by the crystal merchant at first, then it appears many times and becomes the thread of the whole book. Maktub stands for God's will, or the fate of a person. Some people think that fate is already determined by God and unable to change by humanity, some others consider fate as a lie, it can be changed by some external factor. However, in his book The Alchemist, Paulo states that they are all correct but one-sided because those opinions mess up the definition of "fate". Book of story tells us that the fate of a person is to achieve their personal legend. Therefore, It has been determined as a God's will but people still have their free will to choose to do …show more content…

First of all, fate is not the purpose for the treasure. The book of story tells us that the reason why many alchemists cannot make gold is because "they are only looking for gold. They were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend, without wanting actually to live out the Personal Legend (Paulo 125)". Many things happen during the path that heart gives us, and then they will become our "omens" to succeed. The word "omens" from the book stands for those experiences that we gain when we are trying to achieve our personal legend, then we might be able to predict what will happen next. Therefore, without experiencing the process, we cannot achieve our personal goal. On the other hand, treasure is not only our personal goal, many other treasures will also appear on the path of achieving our goal. In the book of story, Santiago met Fatima and he felt in love with her. He also met all kinds of people and met many beautiful places during the journey. However, we cannot stop because of satisfaction. We should keep going for our dream, because that is what we really want to do and we will regret later if we give up. Santiago left Fatima and then keep looking for treasure, but he finally has gone back to find Fatima since he found the

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