The Hero's Journey In The Odyssey, And The Alchemist

In the three stories, The Odyssey by Homer, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, they all have something in common. They all follow the hero's journey. Books that follow the hero's Journey have a hero that has to face challenges and change in some way. These stories usually have many similarities. Every one of these three stories can be compared through, the female protagonists of each story, the heroes cleverness, rewards earned at the end of the story, and their physical or mental transformation.

One thing that is similar in the stories are the female protagonists, Penelope, Mercedes, and Fatima. These characters all have an important role in the journey of the hero. Penelope is the reason Odysseus

is fighting to get back home. Mercedes tries to pull her broken family back together and helps Edmond on his revenge journey. ¨Albert Mondego is the son of Edmond Dantes¨. Fatima helps Santiago learn the language of the world when he falls in love with her. ¨ When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.¨ -The Achemist. They all are who the heroes come home to after their journey.
Another thing they have in common are the cleverness of the heroes.

The three heroes, Odysseus, Edmond, and Santiago are all very clever and show great mental capacity on their journeys. Odysseus shows his cleverness by escaping a cyclopes by poking out its eye and attaching himself to the stomach of a sheep. However he also shows how dumb he is when he doesn't tell his men it's a bag of wind and they get blown away or when he yells his name to the cyclops and makes poseidon mad. ¨Cyclops, if any mortal human being asks about the injury that blinded you, tell them Odysseus destroyed your eye, a sacker of cities, Laertes’ son, a man from Ithaca.¨ Edmond shows how clever he is by escaping prison, saving the pirate's life, and making a huge plan of revenge that didn't involve killing everyone, except Mondego, in which he says, “I am a count not a saint”. Santiago shows how clever he can be by convincing the crystal merchant to give him a job and raising enough money to go to egypt, even though he got tricked by a

theif.
Another thing that the Heros all received was rewards at the end of their journey.

Odysseus was rewarded by coming back home to his kingdom and his wife and son. Edmonds Reward was a lot of money, becoming a Count, and getting His wife and son back. Santiagos reward was the knowledge he gained, as well as the treasure, and his True love Fatima. Odysseus is different because he only came home to his family. ¨The royal pair mingled in love again and afterward lay reveling in stories: hers of the siege her beauty stood at home from arrogant suitors, crowding on her sight, and how they fed their courtships on his cattle oxen and fat sheep, and drank up rivers of wine out of the vats. Odysseus told of what hard blows he had dealt to others and of what blows he had taken-all that story.¨- the Odyssey. Edmond is different because he got the treasure and became a count half way through, and Santiago was different because he was being rewarded the entire journey. There is only one way to learn. It's through action. “Everything you need to know you have learned through your

journey.”
The final thing That compares the three is the hero's physical or mental transformation. Odysseus is only physically transformed when he comes home disguised as a beggar man. He is pretty much the same mentally throughout the journey. Edmond Dantes transforms both physically and mentally. He grows older, wears the fancy clothes of a count, and is unrecognized by most of the people he used to know. He transforms mentally when he is taught to read and write and do math by the priest, and the experience he's been through has transformed his way of thinking as well. Santiago has only changed mentally by learning the language of the world, and falling in love with Fatima. These changed his way of thinking a lot.
These three stories have the female protagonists of each story, the heroes cleverness, rewards earned at the end of the story, and their physical or mental transformation in common. They all follow the hero's journey and have many similarities.