Allegory In The Alchemist

Matthew McBrayer The Alchemist Analysis “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is a book full of allegory and purpose. This book’s main theme is the Danger of fear in the hearts of people. Fear constantly comes up in the story and hinders Santiago’s ability to find his personal legend. Our hero feels many types of fear, a childhood fear of having a older women trell his future, a material fear of losing his money by leaving for Tangier. Even a physical fear of dying in battle. Many people, strong people usually, are considered brave for disregarding fear, as such, the weaker characters are ruled by fear in “the Alchemist”. All of Santiago’s mentors, from the Alchemist to even Melchizedek allowed fear by treating it like a physical object. The mentors described it along the lines of: being a misunderstanding on how their

We even created words, such as “courageous” and “brave” to describe these people. While other people let fear control them, keep them from doing their best, and holds them from their personal legends. "We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand." (Page 76) This quote is implying that we are all fearful of being deprived of the things we cherish the most. We continue to be scared until we realize that the things we revere in our lives, our existence, and our future, is written by one hand, of which we are unsure. In “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, the crystal seller shows this in great perspective. He wanted to take this long voyage, that is required by every Muslim, but he feels once he has made the trip, he will have nothing left to do and nothing to live for. Thanks to this fact, he stayed where he was being very unhappy. This reinforces the feeling that fear can grab ahold and control