The book begins with Santiago’s craving for love with a merchant’s daughter to whom he has only spoken with a few words. This “love” is what takes Santiago off track from his pursuit of his Personal Legend as Santiago refers to this love as his main goal in living. However, when Santiago meets Fatima, his true love, it presents a more difficult challenge as it convinces him to abandon his Personal Legend. However, his love with Fatima is acceptable since Fatima encourages him to pursue his Personal Legend. Fatima says, “If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day” (97).
After he obtains the treasure, he decides to head back to Africa for Fatima as a master of both worlds. In the church under the sycamore where it all began “The boy smiled, and continued digging. Half an hour later, his shovel hit something solid. An hour later, he had before him a chest of Spanish gold coins… ‘I'm coming, Fatima’ he said” (Coelho 170-171). Santiago returns to where he started because the hero’s journey is a circle.
Santiago's temptation is when he has the choice whether or not to stay with Fatima and abandon his Personal Legend. After leaving Fatima he has a difficult time coping with the separation, even if Fatima is a woman of the desert, who knows he will return. The Alchemist offers him a sole piece of advice, “love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend.” (120) Santiago’s heart is aching for the loving arms of Fatima. He realizes that he needs to focus on what he needs, pursuing his Personal Legend and not what he desires to be with Fatima.
He is a stronger and smarter man because of what happened to him. Santiago hit a lot of adversity at the beginning of his journey and it prepared him for the worst of his journey. “Now he understood why the owner of the bar had been so upset: he was trying to tell him not to trust that man.” (Coelho 43). He lost it all and he was prepared for anything for the rest of his journey.
For example, after Santiago travels back to Andalusia and digs inside the abandoned church, he finds a chest full of treasure. He thinks about how he was able to reach his treasure and achieve his Personal Legend; “It's true; life really is generous to those who pursue their Personal Legend, the boy thought" (170). Santiago decided to follow his dream and never gave up, even when he was robbed in Tangier. As a result, he met many people, including Fatima, the love of his life, and learned many important lessons from them. Finally, he found his treasure.
What if another man comes to the oasis in pursuit of finding a wife and believes Fatima would be the one he should marry. For days, Santiago lay in his bed awake. He thought about his two options, but decided to leave. This shows how strong his trust in Fatima was, but it also shows how strongly he believed in achieving his personal
By continuing he finds his true inner strength. In the story, the author shows the importance of perseverance, and how to face the many obstacles that people are presented in their lives to complete their goal. In Coelho's novel, Santiago faces many difficult challenges, but because of his courage and perseverance, he is able to face them head on. While in the town of Tarifa, Santiago meets
Santiago’s last step to completing his personal legend was walking through the desert, to find his treasure and completing it. Thus, showing the symbols and meanings behind these little puzzle pieces in the journey and being rewarded with love and treasure helping to support my thesis, through seeing and understanding symbols behind the world people can learn about their own personal legend and live life to the
Fatima was more important than his treasure” (95). Santiago is willing to drop everything
Ultimately Santiago has developed his identity through the soul of the world and alchemy and has achieved his personal legend
Santiago realizes that he finally has a place and that he is supposed to be following his Personal
Santiago is shaped by his interaction with the Gypsy women, the King, the Englishman, and the Alchemist. All these individuals teach Santiago valuable life
In the novel “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho there is a young shepherd named Santiago who is in search for his personal legend. Santiago’s personal legend is to find the treasure at the pyramids. Throughout his journey, there are a lot of emotions especially the emotion fear. Santiago encountered a lot of challenges like crossing the desert, being in a war and turning himself into the wind. He learned the different levels of fear; fearing fear, being in fear, and overcoming fear.
A personal legend is not just the result found at the end of Santiago's life. It’s more than simply reaching final destination. Santiago personal legend is achieved when he completes what he is doing. “It’s true that everything has it’s personal legend ,but one day that personal legend will be realized ,so each thing has to transform itself into something better ,and to acquire a new personal legend, until someday, the soul of the world becomes one only thing.”
The decision was difficult as both options don’t provide him a steady choice. As being a shepherd does not promise him to be with the merchant daughter and for finding a treasure he need to give up his well settled life. But at the end he chose to find treasure as it allows him to purse his personal legend or dram of travelling throughout the world. He always considers his choice before taking a decision this can be seen through this conversation of Santiago with himself, “Here, I am between my flock and my treasure, the boy thought. He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have.
