Paulo Coelho

THE

ALCHEMIST

Paulo Coelhoauthor

Noveltype of work

Fictiongenre

Portugueselanguage

1988, Braziltime and place written

1988date of first publication

The original publisher was a small Brazilian publishing

house; Rocco, another Brazilian publishing company, was the first large publisher to print the book. Harper One is

the American Publisher.publisher

. . .

As it happens in most of the cases; Paulo’s

parents had very different plans for their son’s

future. They wanted him to be an engineer and

tried to stifle his desires to devote himself to

literature. Their intransigence and his discovery of

Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer aroused Paulo’s

spirit of rebellion, and he began routinely to flout

the family rules routinely. His father took this

behavior as a sign of mental illness and, when Paulo

was seventeen, he twice had him admitted to a

psychiatric hospital, where Paulo underwent several

sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.

Shortly after this, Paulo became involved

with a theatre group and began working as a

journalist. In the eyes of the comfortably-off

middle class Christian family in Brazil of that time,

the theatre was a hotbed of lose immorality. His

frightened parents decided to break their promise

not to confine him again and had him readmitted

to hospital for the third time. When he came out,

Paulo was even more lost and more enclosed in his

own private world. In despair, the family called in

another doctor who told them: Paulo isn’t mad and

he shouldn’t be in a psychiatric hospital. He simply

has to learn how to face up to life.

After this period, Paulo returned to his

studies and it looked as if he was finally going to

follow the route his parents had prepared for him.

But unluckily for the parents, this period happened

to be in the sixties, and the hippie movement had

exploded onto the world scene. Paulo wore his hair

long and made a point of never carrying his identity

card; for a time, he took drugs, wanting to live

the hippie experience to the full. His passion for

writing drove him to start a magazine, of which

only two issues were ever published.

Around this time, the musician and composer, Raul

Seixas invited Paulo to write the words of his

songs. Their second record was a huge success and

sold more than 500,000 copies. This was the first

time Paulo had earned a large amount of money.

Around this time, the musician and composer, Raul

Seixas invited Paulo to write the words of his

songs. Their second record was a huge success and

sold more than 500,000 copies. This was the first

time Paulo had earned a large amount of money.

In the midst of the ‘70s Paulo decided that

he had had enough experience of ‘life’ and wanted

to be ‘normal’. He got a job at the record

company, PolyGram, where he met the woman who

would later become his wife. But this didn’t last

for a very long period of time. But, as we could

imagine, fix jobs were not for him.

In 1987 Paulo wrote his first book, The Pilgrimage. He then wrote The Alchemist in 1988.

He is now a renowned book writer but he

also writes for various newspapers.

Paulo and his wife Christina now live in

between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Tarbes,

France.

Contemporary Literature is a vast group of

written works produced from a specific time in

history through the current age. this literary

era defines a time period but is also describes a

particular style and quality of writing. Some

see it as an extension of postmodern

literature, but most refer to it as a literary

era of its own.

Most agree that the era of

contemporary writing began in the 1940's. A

few scholars claim this period started at the

end of world war II, and this is where the era's

pairing with postmodern literature comes in.

The postmodern era began after WWII, in the

1940's and lasted through 1960's. The

contemporary period extends to the current

day.

Typical characteristics of the contemporary

period include reality-based stories with strong

characters and believable stories. Settings usually keep

to the current or modern era, so futuristic and

science fiction novels are rarely included in this

category. Well-defined realistic, and highly developed

characters are important in classifying a written work

as contemporary, and most writing in this category

features stories that are more character driven than

plot driven.

While sleeping near a sycamore tree in the sacristy of

an abandoned church, Santiago, a shepherd boy, has a recurring

dream about a child who tells him that he will find a hidden

treasure if he travels to the Egyptian pyramids. An old

woman tells Santiago that this dream is prophetic and that

he must follow its instructions. Santiago is uncertain,

however, since he enjoys the life of a shepherd.

Next Santiago meets a mysterious old man who seems

able to read his mind. This man introduces himself as

Melchizedek, or the King of Salem. He tells Santiago about

good and bad omens and says that it is the shepherd boy's

duty to pursue his Personal Legend. Melchizedek then gives

Santiago two stones, Urim and Thummim, with which to

interpret omens.

Santiago wavers briefly before selling his flock and

purchasing a ticket to Tangier, in northern Africa, to which he

travels by boat. Shortly after he arrives there, a thief steals

all of Santiago's money, so the shepherd boy decides to look

for a way to make enough money to return home. He finds

work in the shop of a crystal merchant, where Santiago makes

improvements that reap considerable financial rewards.

After eleven months of working in the shop, Santiago

is unsure of how to proceed. Should he return to Andalusia a

rich man and buy more sheep? Or should he cross the vast

Sahara in pursuit of the hidden treasure of his dreams? He

joins a caravan traveling to Egypt.

Santiago meets an Englishman who wants to learn the

secret of alchemy, or turning any metal into gold, from a

famous alchemist who lives at an oasis on the way to the

pyramids. While traveling, Santiago begins listening to the

desert and discovering the Soul of the World. The caravan

eventually reaches the oasis, and there Santiago meets an

Arab girl named Fatima and falls in love with her instantly.

The caravan leader gathers the travelers together and tells

them that tribal warfare prevents them from continuing their

journey.

Santiago wanders from the oasis into the desert and,

seeing two hawks fighting in the sky, has a vision of an army

entering the oasis.

Because attacking an oasis is a violation of the rules

of the desert, Santiago shares his vision with the oasis's tribal

chieftain. Soon afterward, Santiago is confronted by a black-

garbed, veiled stranger with a sword, who sits atop a white

horse. It is the alchemist. The tribal chieftain arms his men,

and they are well-prepared when the oasis is indeed invaded.

The alchemist offers to cross the desert with Santiago.

Soon the two men enter into an area of intense

tribal warfare. Warriors hold the two men captive, but

eventually allow them to continue their journey.

The alchemist tells Santiago that he needs to return

to the oasis, and that the rest of the trip is Santiago's to

make alone so that he can claim his Personal Legend.

Santiago arrives at the Egyptian pyramids and begins

to dig. He finds nothing buried in the ground. Thieves beat

Santiago and rob him of his money. After he tells them of his

dream, though, one of the thieves recounts his own dream

about a buried treasure in the sacristy of an abandoned

church.

Returning to Andalusia, Santiago goes back to the

church where he dreamed of the treasure near the pyramids.

He digs where he slept, beneath a sycamore tree, and there it

is: Santiago's treasure.

The main plot of the alchemist takes

place in the Spanish pastures, the

Spanish town of Tarifa, the city of

Tangier in North Africa, and the

Sahara desert.

The Alchemist is set in an indistinct

time in the past. It is clearly a pre-

modern time, before automobiles and

most modern technology existed.

The major conflict of the book is

Santiago’s personal tension between

completing his Personal Legend to

travel all the way to Egypt to find a

treasure at the pyramids and settling

along the way for the treasures he

has already earned.

The Centrality of Personal Legends

The Unity of Nature

The Danger of Fear

Santiago’s sheep symbolize the sort of

existence lived by those

who are completely blind

to their Personal Legends.

Santiago loves his sheep,

but he also expresses

thinly veiled disrespect for

them because of their

animal desires for mere

food and water. Santiago

discovers during his

travels.

Also, in a disturbing image,

he imagines that his sheep

are so blindly trusting that

he could kill them one by

one without them noticing.

These sheep symbolize the

characters in the book like

the baker and the crystal

merchant who do not pursue

their Personal Legends. Like

the sheep, these characters

content themselves with

their material desires and

social acceptance.

Accordingly, they lose the

ability to appreciate

certain aspects of

creation, and tend to

miss out on many

opportunities because of

their limited perspectives.

Alchemy, in which a base

metal is transformed into a

more valuable metal like

gold, functions as the

dominant symbol in The

Alchemist and represents

Santiago’s journey to achieve his Personal Legend.

The symbol also gives the

novel its title. The

Alchemist describes the

process of turning base

metal to gold as equivalent

to the base metal realizing

its Personal Legend.

The desert, with its harsh

conditions and tribal wars,

symbolizes the serious

difficulties that await

anyone in pursuit of their

Personal Legend, but it

also serves as an

important teacher to

Santiago during his

journey to the pyramids.

As the alchemist puts it,

tests are an inherent part

of all Personal Legends,

because they are necessary

to create spiritual

growth. More than the

desert heat, the desert’s

silence, emptiness, and

monotony test Santiago. As

Santiago learns, however, even

the desert, despite appearing

barren, contains life and the

Soul of the World. Santiago

begins to understand his

environment, and to see the

signs of life in what seems to

be a wasteland. Eventually he

learns to recognize all of

creation in a single grain of

sand, and in the greatest test

he faces during the book, he

finds he is able to enlist the

desert in his effort to become

the wind.

…whoever you are, or whatever it is

that you do, when you really want

something, it's because that desire

originated in the soul of the universe.

It's your mission on earth."

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering

itself” said the alchemist. – (Alchemist)

The message of the book is that, each one of us

has a dream given to us by God and He gives us

clues times again and again so that we recognize

those clues ( ‘omens’ as he calls them) and

follow these dreams with great zeal.

The purpose of our lives is to discover our

destinies and follow them. No matter how hard

the challenges that will come on our way, we

should never give up. Just follow our heart,

follow our desire.

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