A shepherd named Santiago travels from his home in Andalusia, Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure. During his travels he meets a gypsy woman, a king and an alchemist who help him along the way. Nobody knows what the treasure is, but throughout Santiago’s journey he learns to follow his heart.
In the introduction, Santiago dreams of a buried treasure at the pyramids. In the dream a child plays with Santiago’s sheep and reveals that buried treasure awaits him at the pyramids. During his journey King of Salem, Melchizedek, urges Santiago to follow his dream. Melchizedek tells him to sell his flock and pursue his personal legend.
A thief robs Santiago on his first day in Tangier. He was left completely alone in a new city unable
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However, he uses this initiative to make this crystal merchant’s business more successful and decides to pursue his dreams instead of just returning home.
Santiago travels across the desert by caravan. He meets an Englishman who tells Santiago to learn from books but he prefers to learn from first hand experience. Later on, he meets and falls in love with Fatima who almost distracts Santiago from his dream of finding the treasure.
Soon, Santiago envisions an attack on the Oasis where he was staying with Fatima. An alchemist, who holds exceptional powers learns of Santiago’s vision and reveals himself taking him under his wing. The alchemist guides Santiago against the attack but the get captured.
During the climax, Santiago is taxed with not just saving his own life but of the alchemist as well. He has to turn himself into the wind to show the power of alchemy to his captors. After the dramatic argument with not just the wind, but the sun and the hand of creation of all things Santiago is able to transform himself. Showing that alchemy is more than just lead into gold, in-fact it’s about being one with the spirit of the
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More importantly though are not the ornaments but the treasured moments he has spent on his journey.
This book teaches us a few life lessons and how we should have a positive take on life.
It teaches us to recognise the good things despite of a few bad things along the way, as that was what happened when he was robbed in Tangier.
“If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy person. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.” Santiago’s journey teaches us to make the most of the present and not to dwell on the past or worry too much about the future.
Paulo Coelho’s writing shows us the power of a dream. It tells us that life is interesting when you have a dream. If you settle for what you have, you have nothing to look forward to and life will be dull. As we can see in the book Santiago never gives up on his dream and remains determined.
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
The book gives us a very important lesson on life, that if we are able to make amends and rectify our problems, our happiness radiates and we are able to transcend this to other people around
Santiago replies that he was meant to save the oasis. The man then tests Santiago’s courage and tell him that if Santiago manages to stay alive till sunset the next day, then he should come find him. Santiago asks him where he could be found and the man points towards the south. Santiago realizes that the man in the alchemist. The next morning, although the oasis is attacked, all but one of the intruders were killed, thanks to Santiago’s predictions and prompt action. In payment, Santiago receives fifty gold pieces and is asked to be the counselor for the oasis.
Will Santiago go after his dream? In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Santiago has had the same dream twice. He takes it upon himself to discover what this dream means and where the treasure in the dream is located. The people and challenges he faces along the way all present him with a sacrifice. When trying to achieve his goal, Santiago sacrifices his sheep, Fatima temporarily, gold, and time.
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
Santiago had been rewarded with the treasure earned when completing his journey, “In my dream there was a sycamore growing out the ruin of the sacristy… there were precious stones, gold masks adorned with red and white feathers.” (Coelho 170). Santiago was able to accomplish his personal legend, which he had to go through many stages in the journey that got him closer to completing his goal. In this final stage of his journey was a good thing to accomplish, because he’s gone through all of the stages that had been placed there to challenge and see if he actually wants to accomplish it, so he did not give up and gained trust in himself to keep going. This is an important part of the journey because this had taught him to not give up and trust in his heart to accomplish his personal legend, such as when others believe that it is hard to accomplish what they want to complete and do in their life.
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...
First of all, the author shows that through persevering through adversity anyone can achieve their dreams. During the book Santiago continuously faces problems that he will have to overcome to achieve his Personal Legend. In this scenario, Santiago is in the city of Tangier when he is suddenly robbed of all of his money, by a thief who promised to take him to Egypt. However instead of thinking of himself as a victim of a thief he decides that “I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure” (34). Santiago was able to persevere through a situation that many people would not have been able to overcome and not able to continue their journey. Being able to persevere through
The quest that every hero begins, starts with a mission; be it through a dream, people, an object of some sort, or animals. Santiago’s quest was triggered by the former, a dream. Followed by the meeting of two people, a romani woman and a king. It is at a point after, that Santiago endures a dream of the vast Egyptian desert. Due to the recurring nature of the dream, he pursues a clairvoyant amidst the romani people. Upon discovery of the woman, she asks Santiago of what had ensued during the course of his dream. He inturn he told of how “[a] child took [him] by both hands and transported [him] to the Egyptian pyramids”(13). The romani told him that, in order for her to interpret his dream, as he had gone to her for, he must give her a portion of the treasure.The rationalization that follows with this, is the idea that since a child was the one who had shown Santiago the treasure, that it must exist. Without much time passing, Santiago had came across an old man, who through claim, was allegedly the King of Salem. ...
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
During his journey to Egypt, he meets an Englishman who is studying to become an alchemist. Santiago learns a lot from the Englishman, like the secret of alchemy is written on a stone called the Emerald tablet, and the wisdom about the Soul of the World. Finally, Santiago arrives and starts digging for the treasure at the bottom of the pyramids, but suddenly two men approach and beat him. Santiago tells them about his dream, and they decide to let him live, but take all his money. And then one of men tells Santiago about his dream of treasure buried in an abandoned church in Spain where a sycamore tree grows. The book ends with Santiago digging up the treasure in the church where the story began. Santiago’s real treasure is not under the tree, but everything he learns during his journey. He learns how to connect with the Soul of the World, and how to read and communicate with the world around him. After reading this book, I realized that my goal is not a diploma and a decent job after that. I want to learn from my experiences and the people around me. Explore new things, come across new people and with all the learning from them I want to follow footstep of my mother as a successful business
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...
To begin with, the fear of losing beloved things or people presents people with dilemmas that influence the continuation of their journey and they can only bypass these dilemmas by getting rid of the fear altogether. To begin, Santiago’s fear of losing everything he already earned makes him second guess his plans and therefore discourages him to continue his journey. Santiago expresses his doubts by stating that his “‘heart is a traitor…it does [not] want [him] to go on.’ ‘That makes sense,’ the alchemist answered. ‘Naturally it [is] afraid that, in pursuing [a] dream, [a person] might lose everything [they] [have] won’” (Coelho 145). Throughout the novel, Santiago learns to always listen to his heart, but in this situation if he did, it would result in abandoning his journey. The alchemist encourages Santiago to move on from this fear by stating that it is normal to feel scared, but not normal to give up on a dream because of a feeling. Santiago’s best solution in this situation is to conquer his fear of loss altogether and erase the doubts in his mind for a smoother journey. Next, the fear of losing life in the midst of the journey makes Santiago wonder if it is appropriate to risk his life to pursue a dream. Santiago learns how to handle this situation as “the camel driver had [once] said, to die tomorrow [is] no worse than dying on any other ...
Another aspect of dreams involves the aloofness of the masses as observed by the narrator when the Vicario brothers are plotting the murder. According to the narrator, people are fixated with the Bishop’s arrival to the extent that none considers the twins a threat to Santiago, despite the noticeable signs. On that account, dreams help foretell the repercussions of mass excitement with personalities in the story, and how it influences the lives of other individuals. It also signifies how love can result in the murder of an innocent person as seen in Santiago’s case with Angela.
There are many obstacles in everyday life, but none as detrimental to ones future as fear. Fear can cause people to not only avoid achieving their goals in life but it also forces them to think about it throughout every day. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist shows that those who wallow in fear will never achieve their personal legend, and those who conquer fear will achieve anything they strive for. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a commonly analyzed and criticized piece of literature. One of these articles is Rejendra Kumar Dash’s “Alchemy of the Soul: A Comparative Study of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist”. Dash’s article is a literary criticism of the different parts of the character’s journey in The Alchemist. He talks about, in his article, how the theme in The Alchemist is found through analyzing the different parts of Santiago’s journey and what those parts mean. Another one of these articles is Lily Hasanah’s “Decision Making in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist”. Hasanah’s article is a literary criticism of the main character in The Alchemist, Santiago. She searches for the theme in The Alchemist through analyzing the decisions, and the outcomes of those decisions, made by Santiago. Paulo Coelho provides access to his theme, for the most part, though the actions and adventures of the main character, Santiago. Although this is the method of delivery he had in mind, Dash and Hasanah view the delivery of his theme differently.
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
Santiago is an old fisherman and has been for most of his life. He used to have an apprentice named Manolin but his parents made stop because of the belief that he is bad luck for he hasn't caught a fish in eighty four days. One day he decided that he wasn't going home without catching a fish. So ...