Santiago: A Hero in the Novel The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo

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What makes a hero be a hero? A hero has to have certain characteristics, such as; bravery, wisdom, etc. No matter what characteristics are pointed out, every story has a hero, or an archetypal hero. From a short stories to really long novels, you will have some type of hero. In the novel The Alchemist, the main character Santiago is a hero. The book is about how everyone should live their dreams and never give up on them. It follows a young man named Santiago who is following his own dream, or his own “Personal Legend”. It follows him and his struggles to achieve said Personal Legend. Santiago is a hero because he is wise, kind, and brave; He is also a hero because he displays characteristics of an archetypal hero..
Santiago is a hero, first off, because he has shown bravery many times during the novel. The first example can be found on pages thirty-three and thirty- four. On these pages, Santiago is seen crossing the Mediterranean Sea after leaving his homeland. This would take a lot of bravery because he not only gave up his living and everything familiar to him to cross the sea, but he also can not speak the language of the place he is going to. The second example can be found on page 110. On this page, Santiago lowers his head to receive a killing blow from a sword from some guy on a horse that Santiago never met before in his life. This takes a whole lot of bravery to do because anyone else would probably have ran if they saw someone with a sword standing over them. The last example of bravery can be found on page 162. On these pages, Santiago has been brutally beaten by bandits, and have gotten them to leave him alone by revealing that there is treasure buried where he was digging. This is a great example of bravery because...

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...s massive treasure from his dreams. Lastly, he found Fatima, which is apotheosis all on it’s own. Santiago even states, “ I also have Fatima. She is a treasure greater than anything else I have won”(115).
Santiago is a hero because he is brave, kind, and wise; he is also a hero because he shows characteristics of an archetypal hero. Santiago is brave because he has sacrificed everything to pursue his dreams. He is also kind because he helps everyone around him. He is wise because he can use all his knowledge in any situation to overcome many obstacles. Lastly, He is an archetypal hero because he gets supernatural help, has to prove himself multiple times, and gets apotheosis. From all the information presented above, one can clearly see that Santiago is a hero, and a archetypal hero.

Works Cited

Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.

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