Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essays on pilgrimage
There is no denying the fact that Paulo Coelho with more than a dozen novels to his credit has emerged as a contemporary literary figure of international repute. The Pilgrimage marks his entry into the world of fiction with a bang followed by a big bang in the form of his most popular novel The Alchemist. No doubt, The Alchemist has earned him immense popularity far and wide and established him as a novelist of consummate skill. His other novels which include The Valkyries, Like the Flowing River, By the River Pedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Zahir, The Witch of Portobellow, The Devil and Miss Prym, The Fifth Mountain, Eleven Minutes and Manual of the Warrior of Light flowed from his pen in quick succession and succeeded to capture the attention of the novel loving readers across the globe. The novel under discussion is about the Brazilian protagonist’s quest for the sword which stands for all that is meaningful to him in the world. This paper aims to highlight diverse experiences he encounters during his adventurous journey that he undertakes to find the sword in Santiago.
Human life is not meant merely for eating, drinking and merry-making. Its meaning lies in a quest for something true and meaningful. Paulo Coelho’s philosophy of life as reflected in the novel subscribes to this fact. The protagonist of the novel eschews his hearth and home, wife and domestic strife, and wholeheartedly engages himself in a long abiding search of the sword which symbolizes ancient wisdom and represents his anointment as the Master and Knight of the Order of RAM (R for regnum, A for agnus, and M for mundi). Because of his avidity for the new sword he is deprived by his master of his right over the sword and is asked to seek and find the sword af...
... middle of paper ...
...ut also miraculously make the circumstances favourable to us. Evidently, Paulo’s pilgrimage and his success story owe their origin to his intense desire to be anointed as the Master and Knight of the Order of RAM. Deprived by his Master of his right over the sword symbolizing his anointment, Paulo dedicated himself to the search of the sword- the only thing meaningful for him in the entire world. The intensity of his desire turns the circumstances into his favour and makes Petrus leave Italy to guide him and teach him the RAM practices which give him strength enough to surmount all hurdles.
Works Cited
1. Coelho, Paulo. The Pilgrimage, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. P.17.
2. Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha an Indian tale. New Delhi: Prakash Books India Pvt. Ltd., 2011. P.111.
3. Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011. P.21.
Hermann Hesse’s novel “Siddhartha” is one of spiritual renewal and self discovery. The novel revolves around the life of one man named Siddhartha, who leaves his home and all earthly possessions in an attempt to find spiritual enlightenment. The novel contains many themes, including the relationship between wisdom and knowledge, spirituality, man’s relationship to the natural world, time, love, and satisfaction. To portray these themes, Hesse employs many different rhetorical devices, particularly diction, symbolism, and point of view. These devices allow us, as a reader, to reevaluate our lives and seek fulfillment in the same way that Siddhartha did.
Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, follows a young man through his path of enlightenment Siddhartha is born and raised in India by family of the Brahmins class He has a best friend named Govinda, who loves him very much, just like everyone else does Siddhartha is considered to be the golden child of his community He is the best at everything that he does and everyone wants to befriend him His father makes sure to protect Siddhartha from all the wrong things in the world He doesn 't get to see the real world and all of the bad things it has, only the goods He believes he isn’t learning anything from this and can not grow Through this story we follow Siddhartha in finding himself through Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Path
Okimasis recounts that he has promised his wife, Mariesis Okimasis that his anniversary gift for her will be “the silver cup, that holy chalice.” Highway’s use of symbolism— “holy chalice”— elevates the significance of the though-to-be ordinary cup to the one that carries marital meaning. In Christianity, the Holy Chalice, or the Holy Grail, is a treasured item, for it retains important historical and religious values. The item, though fictional, is so valuable that many conflicts and war had occurred in the world of literature. In this context, the holy chalice holds a meaning of an item being earnestly pursued. The fact that Okimasis urges to win the race, to win the “holy chalice” for his wife reveals his real motivation: Okimasis’ unconditional love for his wife. Because of his wife, Okimasis willingly races through the arduous weather condition, through the obstacles of the race, through the expenditure of his health— “to win the world championship just for her.” At this point, given the real motivation of Okimasis in the race, the reader hopefully sympathizes with him, with his desperation in the beginning of the passage. Victory or defeat, Okimasis has won the reader’s heart. With satisfaction, he “edged past musher number 54.” “[A] silvery white with bold black lettering,” Okimasis approaches the end of the race and
“Only time will tell”. This common phrase states that the truth and true essence of everything will be revealed as time endures. Written in 700 B.C.E, Homer’s nostalgic epic poem, The Odyssey, has inspired many writers to follow. Nearly 30 centuries later, this classic indirectly influenced Paulo Coelho's writing of The Alchemist. Despite the myriad differences on the surface, The Odyssey and The Alchemist have many connecting parallels. The protagonist in each of the examples of the hero’s journey learned countless lessons along the way that can be taught to everyone. The most prominent of which are the dangers of fear, the importance of perseverance, and the seriousness of pursuing what you love.
No one is born without a reason or purpose. While it differs from person to person, there is no greater journey than the quest to fulfill it. From a shepherd searching for the treasure of his dreams, to the son of Indian immigrants who must discover the value in the treasure of accepting in his own identity, following a Personal Legend is a significant part of one’s life. Santiago and Gogol, from the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and the film adaptation The Namesake respectively, encounter obstacles as they embark on the life altering journey to discover and fulfill their destiny. Both protagonists are faced with the challenge of realizing the importance of their Personal Legend and the quest to reach
The knowledge and universal understanding derivative from a journey can leave the traveller positively enlightened. In Coelho’s story, Santiago is faced with recurring dreams which lead him to ‘’traverse the unknown’’ in search of a treasure buried in Egypt, the metaphor for universal connection, and in doing so, comes to the unrelenting realisation of spiritual transcendence. After arriving at the assumed geographical location of the treasure ‘’several figures approached him’’. They demand the boy keep searching for this treasure as they are poor refugees and in need of money, but as Santiago does, he finds nothing. Then, after relentless digging through the night ‘’as the sun rose, the men began to beat the boy’’ , finally relenting with the truth, Santiago reveals his dreams to the travellers. In doing so, Santiago finds out that these men had also been faced with recurring dreams measured around the place where the boy had undergone his own, both relative to hidden treasure. However the leader was ‘’not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream’’. It is with this fact, tha...
There may be no greater fact known than that of human beings seeking a purpose in this life. Are we here simply because of our parents meeting or are we here because God ordained it for some divine reason unfathomable by yourself, but seen by those in your community? What would the world be if Gandhi had not examined himself in his writings? Ultimately we will never know the consequences of unexamined lives because it is simply human nature to seek a purpose, no matter the situation you are born into; meaning, rather King or citizen we all seek to examine our lives to find reason. This brings us to Achilles, the main hero of Homer’s The Iliad and the life that he eventually found a purpose in. This essay will seek to explore through Socrates quotation, “The unexamined life is not wroth living” how Achilles longing for a purpose affected the Achaean community at large both militarily and politically.
The role of teachers in Hesse’s exceptional work of fiction is to aid in the achievement of the ultimate knowledge, while not taking the pupil directly there, instead giving him the skill set necessary to achieve what the student, in this case Siddhartha, feels is that ultimate knowledge.
Temptation, no matter what is being offered or desired, is something that humans have struggled with since we first began to walk upright. Because this is something that we’ve been able to identify with since forever, it has become a central theme in our works of fiction and in our art. The two works discussed herein-Mathias Grunewald’s The Temptation of St. Anthony and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth-are no different in this regard. Both works were created nearly a century apart but both in the same framework of the Renaissance, however, both are of a darker time. Grunewald drew inspiration for his works from the art of the Middle Ages with its religious themes, while Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a very dark play, totally at odds with the bright colors and renewed interest in the classical era expressed throughout the era that both works were created.
...In conclusion, we can say that after applying Joseph Campbell's theory of The Monomyth on The Alchemist; it is noticeable that despite The Alchemist being a postmodernism wok of literature, the author Coelho used all major patterns of the hero's journey of ancient myth in his novel and this developed Santiago's journey from an ordinary one into an archetypal one.
Restraint and Activism Judicial activism is loosely defined as decisions or judgements handed down by judges that take a broad interpretation of the constitution. It is a decision that is more of a reflection of how the judge thinks the law should be interpreted, rather than how the law has or was intended to be interpreted. There are many examples of judicial activism; examples include the opinions of Sandra Day O'Connor in the Lynch v. Donnelly and the Wallace v. Jaffree trials. Sandra Day argues for the changing of the First Amendment's ban on "establishment" of religion into a ban on "endorsement" of religion. Others include the U.S. v. Kinder, where Congress passed legislation that would require a minimum sentence for persons caught distributing more than 10 grams of cocaine.
On our journeys we all must resist, or give into, temptations that may hinder our ascent to our goal. All people give into temptation at least once in their lives. One time that Odysseus gave into temptation was when he listened to the Sirens’ songs. We don’t always collapse into temptation, like when Odysseus wanted so badly to kill the suitors but forced himself to wait for the right time. Another time Odysseus defied temptation was when he refused to reveal himself to the people but ceased expose himself until he felt it was the right time. Temptation is not the only thing to obstruct our expedition.
Have you ever encountered problems while trying to fulfill a goal in your life? In the book The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho, a shepherd boy named Santiago overcomes obstacles to reach his personal legend. Throughout the book Santiago encounters many friends to help him fulfill his destiny. Santiago encounters many problems throughout the story. He overcomes them with the help of his friends and his wife-to-be. These problems shape Santiago into a dignified man of many traits.
Looking deeper into the meaning of Batoni's allegory, we begin with the division of the background. The h...
Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha describes the journey and maturation of Siddhartha. Siddhartha is a young Indian, whose journey to find internal peace takes him to many different places. One of these is the city, where he soon accumulates a large fortune. Wealth and material possession haunt Siddhartha and hinder him from attaining internal peace. This is also demonstrated Brahmin village where he is unhappy with the rituals, and sees wealth and material goods destroying him Herman Hesse uses Siddhartha demonstrate that success is not derived from material wealth, but from personal successes that may have nothing to do with wealth.