“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

March 29, 2021 by Essay Writer

The Alchemist is the most famous book of Paulo Coelho for many reasons. Everybody’s perception from the text they read is very different, and my perception of The Alchemist may be a slight different from what the original storyline is. Through the story of a Shepherd boy, Paulo Coelho has tried to highlight the maturity of life and how it is naïve without some elements like dreams and love. The author has throughout followed a belief that it is the biggest lie, that we cannot control our destiny or follow our dreams that look difficult.

As a simple example, for the same money, we can buy either a horrible jacket that does not fit or one that suits us and looks right. It is better to have problems that make sense because they are part of what you are trying to achieve. If u have a focused aim and u know exactly how you will be achieving your goals, u just need to follow the right omens and the entire universe would play a role in making your dream come true.

Santiago, the lead character faces many dilemmas while his search to realize the dream or what has been referred in the book as personal treasure. Santiago’s dilemma is about the conflict between love and personal dream. Very often, we see a love relationship as the meaning of our life but the obsession with only love can cost us our dream and disconnect us from the world to the extent, that we start treating our dream as inferior to the person we love. Love is important but it is not our duty. Our duty is to pursue the dream that will help our future building. Only through devotion to the dream is the ‘soul of the world’, as the author calls it, revealed to us, the knowledge that destroys loneliness and gives power.

Most of the Novel’s theme is about pursuing the destiny, but dreams do not always show us the path to it, they speak constantly but quietly , and it does not take much effort to listen to the inner voices, just the right time and the right perception to approach in the right direction. We too easily tend to give up on our dreams and many distractions avail in our path as we tend to move towards our dream, but we should realize that with just the right effort, in the right direction, even the universe helps us to fulfill our dreams.

Through the elements of magic, local religions and the powers of the Alchemist, Coelho has given a naïve touch to the story but in a way it all sums to be a metaphor of life, and the effectiveness with which we should handle and chase our dreams.

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