Santiago's Personal Legend In The Alchemist

Santiago changes in many ways. He changes from worrying about the future, to not worrying. He learns that

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’s growth was inspiring to me. He has learned a great deal from action. He learns quite a lot about the land and his sheep by being a shepherd and paying attention to the world around him. His grandfather had mentioned to him a while back of an omen. “By traveling, watching and paying attention, the world will speak to Santiago to help him find is Personal Legend.” Through action, Santiago learns how easy it is to search for one’s Personal Legend. Everyone has their own way of learning things. For example when Santiago decides to try reading the Englishman’s book and he would try and read the signs of the desert. The boy does not learn a thing from the book and the Englishman learns nothing from watching the caravan. Just as Santiago

1. Upon hearing the title of this novel, I researched what an alchemist is. After doing so, I assumed that it was a novel about an alchemist during his quest to turn lead into gold.

Some may refer to The Alchemist as a best-selling novel written by Paulo Coelho which explains the ideas of having a dream, or Personal Legend, and going through obstacles to conquer it. The book starts off like any other, introducing and describing the main characters, in this case Santiago is the first to share the interest of peers reading the story. He is said to be a small town shepherd boy who will do anything for his flock of sheep. In the opening scene of the story, Santiago takes his flock to an abandoned church and lies down under a sycamore tree hoping to get some rest. He is soon woken up from a disturbing dream which foreshadows further into the story of his own Personal Legend. Later in the book, Santiago is faced with multiple tests to be successful in finding his treasure. “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure” (Coelho 15). Paulo continues to add characters in the book that help Santiago throughout his journey.

In the novel "The Alchemist", Santiago is a young shepherd in search of his personal legend. To find your personal legend you need to have qualities like intelligence, understanding, and perseverance. The quality that is key to success is perseverance. Perseverance is doing something despite the difficulty in achieving success. Through searching, for his personal legend, he has gone through many obstacles like losing his sheep, crossing the desert, and turning himself into the wind. He persevered through it all and found his personal legend.

Along their journeys, heroes have to sacrifice life changing opportunities, in order to follow their objective. For example, in the novel , The Alchemist, the literature states “... he didn’t want to become a priest. That he wanted to travel.” (Coelho, pg11) As you can see, the character Santiago, like other heroes, sacrifices this amazing opportunity in order to reach his Personal Legend. Furthermore, not

For the Honors World History midterm project the class was put into groups and we were to make a poster with information about one topic from the first semester. We started with three topics and then picked which idea would be best to transfer to a poster. My group started with the three categories, people, revolutions and countries. We chose countries for our poster. Even though this project was very intimidating and stressful at first, I ended up enjoying it because we worked with other classmates which allowed for more creativity as well as a more complete poster since more people worked on it.

Generally speaking, everyone and everything has their own personal legend or destiny in life. The King, Fatima, and the Englishman all had personal legends or destinies to achieve and even more so all the Englishman’s books were about people who had achieved their personal legends too. It is stated, in The Life of Paulo Coelho as Reflected in the Alchemist: An Expressive Approach that both Santiago and Coelho, himself, have “purpose to fulfill their own spiritual journey…they work at some professions to realize their dream,” (Fajriani 1). This specifically points out that both of them traveled to find themselves and to concur their destiny or personal legend. In result, shows that not only did Santiago have a personal legend but also that Coelho in reality has his own purpose too. Then, in The Alchemist, it points out

In the alchemist,there is a young adult male named santiago. Santiago is a Shepherd who doesn't have much to offer but his sheep,as he goes on with his regular life only looking for food and water for his sheep and him he doesn't have much time to fantasize about his life except for when he reads book. As he goes on through his journey things change. Although santiago is just a shepherd he still has dreams and a goal in life.

In The Alchemist, the old man named Melchizedek, who is the king of Salem, defines Personal Legends as, “A force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission here on earth.” Santiago soon realizes that his Personal Legend is to be a Sheppard, travel and to marry the merchant’s daughter, who he has been in love with and waiting to reunite with for over a year. His family had hoped that he would become a priest, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do. Santiago had a dream of being lead to the Pyramids where there was treasure waiting him. While he sets out on his journey, he and the merchant’s daughter come together and define their love for one another, and she tells him that she will wait for him during his quest to the Pyramids. During his travels, Santiago learns of his strengths and his determination to make it to the treasure, and back to the love of his life. He had been robbed by someone he thought he could trust, he was taken in and given help from a crystal merchant to earn money to continue his travels, he joined a traveling caravan, and he also traveled with the Alchemist, who gave him the clarity he needed to see the road that lies ahead. Life is FULL of

The book The Alchemist was about a young man named Santiago who followed his dream to discover a hidden treasure. As Santiago progressed throughout his journey, his character changed a lot. Santiago, a man who has great instincts, is afraid to trust his dream at the beginning of the book but over time becomes more and more confident with his choices in in this aspect he changes from the beginning of the book to the end.

At the turn of the 17th Century, East Asia was the center of the world: the recent entrance of Europeans brought cheaper silver along with a novel religion and great advances in technology, such as in clocks, glass technology and cannons. The Chinese tribute system had governed foreign affairs in the region since the Tang Dynasty (618-907), other than the long interruption caused by the Mongols, who nevertheless adapted certain attributes in their diplomacy. The Imjin War (1592-1598) posed a serious challenge to the tribute system, led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the unifier of Japan. The Japanese invading force had been forged in the previous century of sengoku and arrived with the advantage of surprise, as well as a stunning superiority in weaponry (including European arquebuses used earlier in the century to devastating effect against the Aztecs and Incas) and experience. Even so, the Imjin War proved a massive success for the Ming and showed the strength of the tribute system in the face of strong opposition. In particular, Korean awe of China, the rules of the tribute system and the Japanese failure in this imperial invasion demonstrate the strong position China found itself in at this pivotal moment for East Asia.

In The Alchemist every adventure, quest, and obstacle Santiago had to overcome was all a part of him realizing his Personal Legend. Early in the book Santiago encounters Melchizedek, the old king, who explains to him, “In the long run what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own personal legends.” This had helped Santiago realize that instead of concerning

The congregation of the Catholic Church was showing much more interest in their faith, while the condition of the clergy and churchmen declined. For the people belonging to the church there was a great attraction to the more ‘dramatic’ aspects of religion. Popular preachers, such as St. John Capistranó, attracted crowds into the thousands. There were also high masses on important feast days, but mass attendance was low otherwise. Processions also became very popular in the church; for example the Feast of Corpus Christie honoring Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Rome also became popular, some believers even making the journey on their knees. The congregation also abandoned the idea of mystical theology,