Thesis For The Alchemist

“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is a story about a young shepherd boy named Santiago who believes that his reoccurring dream, has an underlying prophetic meaning. This is a story about following your dreams and letting your journey lead you to your destiny. Santiago takes his dream to a Romani-fortune teller and allows her to interpret it. The fortune teller interprets the boy’s dream as a symbol of treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. The boy takes her advice solemnly, and along the journey meets a few people who change his life. He meets an old king, a crystal merchant, an alchemist, a monk, an Englishman, and a girl named Fatima. One of the main motifs that plays throughout this novel, is that theme that never giving up can lead to your true

It would be simple to say that Coelho’s target audience is simply everyone, but without being vague, everyone truly needs direction in their life at some point or another. The moral of the story is about looking for your own personal legends and how each and every one’s purpose in life is to accomplish this extensive, yet well-meaning, task. I believe that this is a book that everyone should read when they are given the opportunity to because there is an underlying message that can be carried on throughout a

The first message is fate. In the book, fate is often alluded to as a reason not to follow one’s Personal Legend. The crystal merchant constantly states “maktub” or “It is written.” I can specifically relate this to my own individualistic values. Culturally, I was embedded to think that if something is willed, it will happen. Words embedded into me since I was a child like “InshaAllah” which means “if God has willed it” and “MashaAllah,” “God has willed it” made me think that everything is truly written out for us, and also reminded me of the crystal merchants phrase. Cultural and individual values like these can provide reasoning to believing that fate is simply in much larger control of our lives than we are ourselves. Another message in this book that relates to values of contemporary society is religion and spirituality. In the novel, Santiago abandoned the church in order to experience his Personal Legend. However, religion is what led him to learning how to read, which was a crucial aspect in his quest for destiny. The modern spirituality that occurs in today’s society plays a role into how along our journey through life, we must work in part with the destiny in our favor. Doing so requires reading the “Soul of the World” for the signs from God and making the positive decisions, which a lot of people in this generation can relate