Santiago's experience by Paulo Coelho reflects a coming of age story in the following ways: the main character learns that mistakes are possible, he also learns about love, he meets many new people that influence his coming of age, and he learns to accept and learn others’ views. After reading the alchemist by Paulo Coelho it is clear that Santiago comes of age in important ways/aspects of his personality. These include: His growth in intelligence, his emotions towards others, and his faith. A coming of age story focuses on the protagonist of the story becoming an adult from usually a teenager. In a coming of age story you see the main character face many problems and resolutions in their journey. Similar to how in the alchemist our main …show more content…
In the beginning of the story santiago is merely just a shepard that can read but, throughout the book he learns how to understand the language of the world. “‘I didn't know shepherds knew how to read,’... ‘How did you learn to read?’ the girl asked at one point. ‘Like everybody learns,’ he said. ‘In school.’” “‘I am learning the Language of the World, and everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me… even the flight of the hawks,’ he said to himself” In the first piece of evidence the reader can only see that he is relatively smart because he knows how to read and is a shepard. But as the story continues santiago also grows and comes of age to a point at which he starts to learn and understand the language of the world. Which is a huge addition in his overall knowledge, as seen in the second piece of …show more content…
The coming of age component of the story is dispersed throughout the story in many ways, this is shown by the author because through santiago’s life journey he learns lots that he otherwise would not have known. In real life we make many decisions that affect how we learn and the information that we end up learning. Some decisions turn out for the good and benefit us, but some put us in a bad state and end up wrecking us but still teaching an important lesson. Being human comes with having good times and bad time both of which we learn from, the good times ca lead to great success, and bad times to extreme failures, but alas we still learn and improve upon our actions. And that is what coming of age is