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Crystal Merchant Quotes

Decent Essays

You are a shepherd boy whose dream has led you on 2 personal journeys to find an unknown treasure. Although your journey started off well, your luck turns on you after a friendly local tricks and rohs you of your many. This leads you to a crystal merchant’s shop where you are forced to confront your fears. The Alchemist tells the story of a boy, Santiago, who experiences just this. His first negative experience away from home led him to face his fears. In this essay, I will prove that the crystal merchant is a representation of the fear Santiago has of being consumed by his own fears through the merchant’s lack of liveliness, the parallels between him and the merchant, and the lessons learned after living with and working for the merchant for …show more content…

“...But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen the, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so (pg.60).” This quote from the merchant explains his own aversion to continuing a personal journey, but even more expands upon the fact that he sees himself in Santiago. Spending time with the boy has made him realize how much time he has wasted and how long he has wallowed away in his own misery when he knows he should’ve been doing something else—something more with his …show more content…

The crystal merchant spends his life wallowing in fear and anxiety and does not let himself grow or move from the spot he made for himself thirty years ago despite the clear logistical option of going to Mecca and seeing his wife once more. The merchant and Santiago share parallels as the merchant’s reluctancy to leave his spot due to overwhelming anxiety parallels Santiago’s inability to move forward due to one bad experience that left him broken and broke. After living with this merchant and working for him for so long, the boy realizes he needs to move forward despite any negative experiences. Bad things happen sometimes, but he realizes no good comes out of staying in one spot just to ease the pain of one small event over the course of your entire life. Therefore, Santiago’s direct speech and physicality near the merchant had forced him to view and face his fear

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