The Alchemist Essay

The Alchemist Throughout life we all come across obstacles. Some we’ve already faced but most we still have yet to face. When we come across these obstacles nothing in life truly comes easy. We’ll come across some that will be good and benefit us in life but we also have to be open minded to the fact that we can also come across some bad obstacles in life. In the novel The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho, we come across a young man who goes after the name Santiago. Santiago is a shepherd from a small Andalusian town. He goes through four main obstacles throughout his life to try and achieve his very own personal legend. These four obstacles Santiago experienced, why, how it affected him, and my general thoughts relating to such. The four obstacles Santiago faces that I will be talking about in this essay are, disagreement, love, fear of defeat and fear of accomplishing his dream. The first obstacle that has Santiago starting to lean towards his personal legend (that no one knows what it is from reading the begging of the story) is the very first obstacle known as disagreement. Within this disagreement that occurs of what his father wanted him to be lead to his true dream. What is this dream? His dream is to travel the world and travel to the pyramids to find a treasure. What is the treasure so to speak? Santiago himself still isn’t sure of it. Santiago growing up, his parents want him to become a priest. Santiago does not want that for his future. With that we are aware of how Santiago came about this situation with his father because of Coelho the narrator. Coelho mentions, “One afternoon, on a visit to his family, he had summoned up the courage to tell his father that he didn’t want to become a priest. That he wanted to travel.” (Coelho 8). Santiago as a child growing up, he’s always wanted to grow up knowing the world so he felt it was best on telling the truth to his family better yet his father who hoped the most of Santiago becoming a priest, that he doesn’t want that. What leads Santiago to finally step up on doing what he really wants to do with his life, was a reoccurring dream he keeps having. Santiago mentions this dream in the novel. Some random child took Santiago by his hands a brought him to the Egyptian pyramids. There Santiago says, “The child said to me, ‘If you come here, you will find a hidden treasure.’ And just as she was about to show me the exact location, I woke up. Both times.” (Coelho 14). With that, we get an understanding that with this reoccurring dream, of course Santiago will want to find out what’s its meaning is which sets Santiago’s first obstacle to trying to achieve his dreams. Where his dreams is of traveling the world and finding this hidden treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. Santiago overcame this obstacle by hope in finding this treasure. This second obstacle is love. Finding it and giving up things he loves in order to fulfill his dreams. In regards of starting his journey, Santiago has to give away a tenth of his sheep to an old man. Santiago loves his sheep very much. But with the old man telling Santiago, “Tomorrow, at this time, bring me a tenth of your flock. And I will tell you how to find the hidden treasure” (Coelho 25), of course Santiago is going to give up that tenth of his sheep. Day by day Santiago’s sheep were crossing his mind. In utter guilt of giving them away like that but reminding himself it’s all for a purpose. But that’s only the first hard thing Santiago had to face out of many more things. At the start of his journey, Santiago ended up in Africa. Where their Santiago gets a job at the Merchant. He works there for nearly a year. A year long enough for Santiago to emotionally get attached to the people around him. He grew to love the people in Africa as well as his job. In the novel Coelho mentions, “He left without saying good-bye to the crystal merchant. He didn’t want to cry with other people there. He was going to miss the place and all the

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