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
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...
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. ...
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” (Coelho 23), these are the words an old king spoke to Santiago. This phrase constantly runs through Santiago’s mind while on his search for his treasure. Santiago, the novel’s protagonist, begins as a quiet sheep herder who has a recurring dream about being transported to the pyramids in Egypt by a child. Once Santiago met the old king, he decides to pursue his dream, find his treasure, and realize his destiny. Throughout The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Santiago embodies curiosity, determination, and a naive nature through events that occur while on his search for his treasure.
In the time he spent with the Crystal Merchant he realized that it is important to continue moving forward. He learned all that he could from his sheep, so he sold them and through the continuation of his journey he met new people and was taught new things. With his newly found understanding of the world, Santiago realizes that achieving one’s Personal Legend does not necessarily guarantee a treasure of material wealth, however, one will almost certainly acquire treasure in the form of personal
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.
In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho continuously shows how Santiago conquers fear and is greatly rewarded for it. In order to get his treasure and achieve his personal legend he must first travel through the well-known dangers of the desert. It is an extremely expensive trip that many do...
Santiago is a shepherd trying to pursue his personal legend. His personal legend is the recurring dream about the hidden treasure at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids. In his dream he starts playing in a field with his sheep, when a child appeared and began to play with the animals. This was strange to him because sheep are afraid of strangers, but the sheep and children play along just fine. Then a child grabbed his hands and took him to the foot of the Egyptian pyramids. He begins his journey locally trying to find answers from a gypsy and a man named
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
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 then sets out on yet another journey, to see the alchemist. The alchemist tells Santiago that he was going to point him in the direction of the treasure. Once again Santiago is at crossroads. He replies that he has already found his treasure, namely the money he received from the crystal shop and the chieftain, a camel, and also the woman he loves, Fatima. The alchemist reminds him that none of those were found at the Pyramids, which was his initial
There were around two hundred people that join the caravan including the Santiago and the Englishman. The Englishman says ‘there’s no such thing as coincidence’. Santiago realizes the closer one gets to realize his Personal Legends, the more that Personal Legends becomes his true reasons for beings. While crossing the deserts, he was thinking about the past and the future by learning the universal language. His mother’s referred this knowledge as hunches and also the word maktub means it is written. He realizes that he had learns more by observing his camel and the caravan, and he throw away his books. Santiago having a conversation with the camel driver at night, he told Santiago about his life before and how he became a camel driver. He learned
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
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 ...
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 ...