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An essay on the alchemist
An essay on the alchemist
An essay on the alchemist
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A boy, who is a shepherd lives in an abandoned church with his herd of sheep until one day he gets told that there is a treasure hidden in the pyramids of Egypt. He goes to follow his dream of finding the treasure in the pyramids, but he is regretting it along the way as he does not want to abandon his sheep. He can´t decide what to do as he is traveling along the way to gain money in order to go to Egypt. He meets a man who calls himself the King of Salem. He tells the boy to not give up on his dream and continue on his journey to find his Personal Legend. The old man gives the boy two stones that go by the name of Urim and Thummim. He firsts gets money by selling wavers in order to travel to Northern Africa. When he had arrived to his destination, …show more content…
Santiago then finds a girl as the vehicle reaches the oasis, and he falls in love with her. However, on his way to the pyramids, there was a war going on, and they could not go any further. Santiago has no choice but to travel on foot to the pyramids in which on his way meets the alchemist the Englishman was talking about. They travel together until they are stopped by tribesmen who tell them they can´t go any further. The alchemist convinces them to let them continue on their voyage. They then find themselves in a war torn area. They somehow make their way out, and the alchemist tells that the rest of the trip of the trip he will have to be by himself. Santiago starts listening to the voice of the desert and the sun guiding him to the treasure hidden in the pyramids as he had already known what the Soul of the World was. He starts digging as he reached his destination,but he couldn´t find any treasure there. Shortly after, thieves appear and proceed to beat the kid up for his money. He later on returns to his hometown, and sits next to the very place he dreamed of finding the treasure of the pyramids. Santiago begins to dig in that spot, and realizes that the treasure was there all
He remains hopeful, and he makes sure to stay true to himself and follow his inner omens. Back at the merchant’s shop, Santiago is willing to help him live his dream out. The merchant’s dream is to travel to Mecca one day, but when Santiago tries to help him achieve this goal, he will not budge. His only hope in life is to go to Mecca, so feels that is he goes there, he would simply lose the will to live as he has no more hope. We do however, see the survival instincts kick in of the young boy who steals Santiago’s money. With a greedy heart he runs away with all the coins in order to protect himself, and hopefully his family. Here the boys survival methods almost vanquished the hope in Santiago’s heart, but in the end he was able to pull through. The merchant is similar to Lord of the Flies as it is hope(and dreams) that keep these characters moving in life. However some characters may be similar, there is a clear and defined line between Santiago and the boys on the island. It is easy to tell that the light and hope has disappeared from the boys’ hearts after the murder of Simon, but Santiago is able to get back up and keep going on his
Santiago’s decision to leave the oasis. After meeting Fatima Santiago doubts his quest. The Alchemist’s
Upon arriving they said they would stay at the oasis until it was safe to cross the desert. A camel driver tells Santiago that, “There are rumors of tribal wars” (The Alchemist 80). When entering the oasis they had to hand over their arms and stay in tents with locals and fellow travelers. During his short time at the oasis Santiago experiences love at first sight with a girl named Fatima. As the war drags on Santiago tells Fatima about his personal legend and she encourages him to continue on to Egypt. Although she has been waiting for him her entire life she still insisted that he achieve his personal legend. She said if they are meant to be together they will meet again one day. Then Santiago left the oasis with the Alchemist towards the pyramids. Through this he realizes that each challenge he faces on the way to his destination forms part of God's
He first struggles internally when he wants to understand the dream he is having repeatedly. During the call to adventure in the hero’s journey, Santiago heads to an old gypsy in order to understand the dream he has. However, after listening to the interpretation, Santiago decided to “never again believe in dreams” because the gypsy only told him things he had already known (Coelho 17). This internal struggle, which sets the stage for the rest of Santiago’s struggles, had restrained Santiago for some time because he wasn’t able to pursue his personal legend if he didn’t believe in it, However, he later overcomes this struggle and continues on his path to achieving his personal legend. Santiago struggles internally later when he meets with the chief of a camp in the desert who tells him that he wants to see him turn into the wind. The alchemist, a man Santiago met to help him achieve his personal legend, told the chief that Santiago will be able to turn himself into the wind to show his powers, and if he can’t, “[they’ll] humbly offer [them] [their] lives” (Coelho 145). Santiago has never turned himself into the wind, so he has to dig deeply within in order to find the
In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho an Andalusian boy named Santiago leaves Spain to travel to Egypt in order to achieve his Personal Legend. During his journey he meets four people, a Gypsy, a King named Melchizedek, an Englishman and an Alchemist, all of whom help Santiago along his journey towards his Personal Legend. However, only the King and the Alchemist teach Santiago lessons that he can learn from and use along his journey. The King teaches Santiago two lessons, to follow omens and that it is not always about the destination but that it is also about the journey. The Alchemist teaches Santiago to listen to his heart for guidance, what the Language of the World is and what the Soul of the World is. He eventually arrives in Egypt after
Santiago is a young boy who fits into the flawed hero archetype. His story tells of his journey to find his Personal Legend and the many new people and experiences he encounters. Santiago is flawed in the way that he does not have enough confidence in himself to complete the task set out in front of him. He is constantly putting himself off track and avoiding what he has to do. In the beginning of his journey, he faces a setback and his money gets stolen. While finding a solution and a job, he gets distracted loses sight of his dreams. A couple months into the job, he thinks, “...Egypt was now just as distant a dream as was Mecca for the merchant…” (Coelho 58) and he glorifies his new plan to “disembark at Tarifa as a winner” (Coelho 58) with his improved flock of sheep. However, he continues his journey two years later, despite his break in confidence. When Santiago reaches the Oasis during his journey across the desert, he gets sidetracked once more by a woman. This woman’s name is Fatima. The second time they meet Santiago speaks without thinking and says, “‘I came to tell you just one thing...I want you to be my wife. I love you.’” (Coelho 98). This alone demonstrates his rash actions of an inexperienced hero who causes his dreams to be postponed. However, Santiago is also a successful hero despite his flaws. He still continues his journey, no matter what, and eventually reaches his goal. Even through
He doesn’t speak the language or know how the people in Africa act; he just knows that his treasure is in Egypt. His innocence and lack of awareness causes him to trust a young Arab boy, who ends up stealing all the money Santiago had, “The boy wanted to believe that his friend had simply become separated from him by accident.” (41) As a result, this causes Santiago to feel helpless and incapable of continuing his personal legend. He sees no point in continuing his journey and decides that he wants to go back to being a shepherd in Spain. However, Santiago remembers the Old King of Salem and his advice on following one's journey. He decides that he wants to continue in order to complete his Journey and not end up like the Baker, who awaits for a chance to accomplish his own journey. For this reason, Santiago is a hero because when tough obstacles come his way, he continues in hopes of finishing his journey and returning back home to his ordinary life and to the Merchant’s
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...
I enjoyed watching Santiago grow and learn from the experiences he gained through his journey to find treasure in Egypt. I found I couldn’t stop reading “The Alchemist” soon after I began. I had to keep reading about Santiago’s journey and his adventures.
He reached to the Pyramid and start to dig the ground, nevertheless nothing was found. Suddenly strange figures came to him and why are you digging. As soon as they knew why he is digging the whole the leader of the group said he also had a recurring dream here. The dream was about travel of the Spain ruined church where the shepherd and sheep slept. My hair raised at that moment. I ponder, who is he? That place is Santiago’s own country. He returns back to his country and found the treasure.
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 ...
The young boy, Santiago, took this journey to see the world. Santiago is a shepherd who has high hopes of traveling the world. Along his travels, he has the same dream twice in a row. This dream that reoccurred gave him a weird vibe. He went on the next day searching for a woman in Tarifa who interpreted dreams. This gypsy taught him what his dream was telling him. It was saying that Santiago had a treasure waiting for him in the Egyptian pyramids.
Miguel and Tulio are best friends. They are excellent con-artists and have been living on the streets of Spain and cheating their way through every gamble they take. Near the end of a game, their opponents bet a map in an attempt to win back their money. Miguel and Tulio win the game and discover that the map depicts the way to El Dorado. They are caught cheating and are almost arrested. As they run to escape the soldiers, they find themselves stuck on a ship going out to sea. Much to their poor luck, the ship is owned by Hernando Cortes, who is sailing out to sea to search for El Dorado himself. Miguel and Tulio narrowly escape death and end up in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. They wash up on an abandoned shore and realize that this is the first location on the map to El Dorado. They follow the map and end up discovering the city of gold deep in the forest. When they reach the center of the city, the high priest, Tzekel-Kan, and the chief, Chief Tannabok, mistake the two strangers as their long awaited gods. Miguel and Tulio are baffled and at first do not know what to do. Then they begin to see this as an opportunity to gather as much gold as possible, and they quickly take up the act as gods. As they stay in the city, they gain more and more gold and are worshipped by the locals. Many unexpected events occur, leading the two friends to different paths.
The characters Santiago meet in the book influence his decisions.King Melchizedek, Fatima, and The Alchemist are the ones who make Santiago’s dream possible. At first the King seems like a peasant but underneath the raggedy clothes was a breastplate of gold. He is the man that starts Santiago’s journey to his own Personal Legend. “To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation.” (25). From that quote you could see that he is telling him to go for it, pursue your own personal legend. Santiago’s next encounter is with Fatima. Fatima is a women of the desert. After Santiago told her about his personal legend she knew that it was sign, they were meant to be. All she could really do was help him continue to his goal. "I'm a desert woman, and I'm proud of that. I want my husband to wander as free as the wind that shapes the dunes.” (99). She is allowing him to be free and go on pursuit of his dreams. The
Sycamore Tree and the Dream: Though it is posisbly unknown to Santiago at the begining of the novel it represents the start and finish of Santiago's Personal Legend. As Santiago soon comes to realize that maybe the Sycamore Tree had a daunting effect on him due the reoccuring dream, he begins to purseu to find out the meaning of his dream. The dream of a innocent boy playing with his sheep and ultimately taking him to the pyramids of Egypt eventually heightens Santiago's curiosity and his obsession behind understanding the dream takes him to a gypsy who encourages Santiago to take the next step in finding the treasure which truely does exist.