The Alchemist Research Paper

The treasure he had been looking for all this time was right before him. As Santiago finds all his treasure, he realizes that he needs to experience everything he has been through on his journey before he finds his treasure. Santiago understands that if he hadn't made that one choice to follow his dreams, he would have never discovered his treasure or experienced what he had been through. The Alchemist tells a story about Santiago's hero's journey, highlighting the life-changing benefits of fulfilling his dreams. Supernatural aid, the road of the trial, and the return to the ordinary world are the hero's journeys that happen in the story and involve complex tasks and being able to accomplish

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.

On its surface, The Alchemist seems like a simple story, but it actually explores the deeper subject of finding one’s destiny. The author, Paulo Coelho, does this through the use of basic plot detail that includes exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The story’s exposition starts with the introduction of a teen-age Andalusian shepherd named Santiago, who has had a recurring dream about a little girl helping him find a treasure in Egypt. He wants to understand this dream, so he decides to visit a gypsy fortune teller (Page 13). The woman tells him to follow through with what his dream seems to be telling him to do: “And this is my interpretation: you must go to the

Although a hero seems like a faraway distant character who possesses a unique ability that saves humanity, an everyday citizen in society holds the ability to impact the lives of others can become a hero. In the novel, The Alchemist, the protagonist, Santiago, travels as a shepherd but ultimately, follows The Hero’s Journey Archetype. As Santiago pursues a journey for treasure and self-knowledge, Santiago faces several difficult challenges and character-defining moments that assess his ability to succeed. Coelho depicts Santiago as following the stages of the Hero’s Journey Archetype such as The Mentor, The Abyss, and the Return to the World. Thus, Coelho employs The Hero’s Journey Archetype to demonstrate the

The alchemist is a well written book that accurately describes every concept about life and explains it through a story. The Alchemist is a book about a shepherd named Santiago, who discovers his personal legend and receives help from others to help achieve his Personal Legend and learns many major life lessons along the way. Santiago gets advice that when life puts him down, keep getting back up and to focus on the task at hand, which is Santiago’s own personal legend. Along the the journey, Santiago receives help from many different characters but only three characters who helped him the most throughout his quest for his Personal legend is the alchemist, the Old King and the Englishman. The best advice a reader is able to gain from this story is the advice the the Old King taught Santiago, which is” there is only one thing that makes achieving a dream impossible to achieve, the fear of failure” which means is to never be afraid of failures and to follow your own path God has laid out for you because if you are too afraid to pursue your personal legend, meaning if people are too afraid to take risks to make their own life better than it already is now, then they will not have the opportunity to accomplish their own goals. In Coelho's The Alchemist, Santiago learns the Soul of the World through experience, patience, time and help from the Old King, the Englishman and the alchemist.

Have you ever felt like there was more out there that you could achieve? In the Alchemist there are illustrations and topics that talk about journeys, destiny, legends, alchemy and more. Throughout the novel Santiago, the main character goes through a journey to find his legend and destiny. While he goes through his journey, he finds an alchemist and learns alchemy and how destiny is connected all around the world.

Santiago’s journey, only a footprint in the ever changing sands of the desert, alters , like his perception of the desert. In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Santiago discovers how his attitude towards the desert changes throughout his journey. The author does this by implementing metaphor, antithesis and personification to maneuver his way through multiple perceptions of the Sahara desert. Coelho’s purpose is to reveal the inherent meaning within even the most desolate of places in order to show the different views of the arid land through Santiago.

In The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, a recurring theme shown throughout the novel is how fighting to overcome your struggles in life and learning through new experiences can often have great rewards. The main character, Santiago, is continuously discouraged from pushing through with his personal legend as he faces the world's complications. After having a recurring dream

The book The Alchemist contains profound messages about the meaning of life and the human condition. Paul Coehlo utilizes several events to show how people make the greatest discoveries when they take risks. The character Santiago demonstrates the theme by relinquishing his old life as a shepherd to find discipline as a shop worker, crossing the treacherous desert to uncover wisdom, and letting go of the love of his life to complete the journey.

As Drake, a three time grammy winning rapper, said in his high school graduation speech,“Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.” These journeys can be hard, and in The Alchemist Santiago learns that his journey taught him a lot of the values that shape his personality. Paulo Coelho represents the “everyman” with Santiago, and uses his journey to communicate the moral of the novel which is the journey you follow while pursuing your Personal Legend is the treasure not the treasure itself, once again relating back to Drake’s quote. In The Alchemist Paulo Coelho uses Santiago to illustrate that completing your Personal Legend is not easy, and you need to take wisdom from others, be willing to change, and persevere through hardships in order to succeed.

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

Alchemist is already explained in the story as it is the ability to purify your soul, listen to your heart and speak the language of the world. The title is, then, to show us, the readers, that anyone can achieve his/her dream by possessing the characteristics of alchemist as exactly as the shepherd boy, Santiago.

The Alchemist, a fiction novel written by Paulo Coelho, is an outstanding piece of literature that teaches important life lessons through the adventures of a young boy seeking his treasure. The universal idea of this book is to always pursue your personal destiny, or in other words, to follow your dreams. Santiago, a shepherd of Andalusia, Spain, had a dream to reach the grand pyramids of Egypt. A passing king of Salem told the boy to follow his destiny, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it (page 22)”. Santiago left everything behind and traveled far and wide across the desert to reach the pyramids, and along his way, he ran into many troubles and obstacles. He also met The Alchemist,

The alchemist teaches him many life lessons to help him find his life path but mainly focuses on listening to his heart. “The heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say” (Coelho 134). This lesson the Alchemist teaches him helps him while traveling the desert as he later encounters different problems that he will need to listen to his heart to solve the

14) Earlier in the story, the alchemist told Santiago "when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed." At the end of the story, how does this simple lesson change Santiago’s life? How does it lead him back to the treasure he was looking for?