Dreams and Ambitions

Peter Nguyen

The Alchemist

By Paulo Coelho

      

Dreams and Ambitions

In a modern world, we are too busy constantly juggling many things such as school, work, friends, etc. We no longer wonder the meaning of life and its purpose as our lives are too shallow and fast paced to wonder such deep questions. Paulo Coelho manages to spark those questions in us with his adventure story.

The Alchemist follows the story of a young shepherd boy named Santiago who spends his life tending to a flock of sheep and traveling to many towns in Spain selling wool. He originates from a family of farmers and becomes a shepherd for a simple reason; he wants to travel to new places and meet new people, which is something farming never allowed him to do. He plans to head to a town where he met a beautiful girl the previous year and plans to be with her. On his way there, he meets a gypsy who reads his recurring dream if finding a treasure near the Pyramids in Egypt. The gypsy tells him that he needs to travel to the Pyramids and promise her 1/10 of the treasure. He then meets a man named Melchizedek who claims he is a king and is able to tell him impossible things that a stranger wouldn’t know and do impossible acts, which makes sense as magic is an established standard in The Alchemist. This man tells him about Personal Legends in which he has to follow his omens, much like the Gypsy told him. He follows their advice and leaves his life as a shepherd to find the treasure. He sells his sheep and heads off to Tangier, where he begins his journey to the treasure.

The first few chapters came off as overrated and fairly dull, as nothing much happened and the insight on Santiago was boring and uninspiring. However, as I read on, I became much more interested in the plot and saw The Alchemist not just as a book but as a philosophy lesson. The main overall message of the book and Santiago’s actions is to ‘follow your dreams.’ There's nothing wrong with this and I can appreciate what Coelho does, but I just find his themes and messages generic. There's no doubt that the book is very well written as I found myself constantly wanting to find out what happens next. I haven’t finished the book yet but I already feel that the book’s ending is very predictable. The whole premise of the book is that ‘it’s not about the destination, it's about the journey’, which is pretty cliche and standard in adventure books. Other than that, Coelho clearly and effectively integrates themes into his book such as dreams.

Despite finding the novel’s themes bland, I enjoyed the fact that Coelho doesn’t just give Santiago an obstacle or a few to overcome like a stereotypical adventure book, but gives him things a normal person could relate to. For instance, Santiago is tempted to give up many times such as before he meets Melchizedek and when he gets all of his earnings stolen at the market in Tangier. In addition, he’s also tempted to do other things such as staying comfortable and living a normal life as a shepherd. Even with these small drawbacks, Santiago is undeterred and pushes on to pursue his dream. While talking to the gypsy, he thinks “...for a moment that it would be better to pay her fee and leave without learning a thing, that he was giving too much importance to his recurrent dream.” (Coelho 47) At this moment, he is about to give it up and stay in his comfort zone, but he decides to take a risk instead.

One pretty obvious major theme is dreams and desires. From the beginning, we can see that the protagonist is a dreamer, as he is a shepherd that comes come a poor family of farmers. He spends his days and nights thinking about the people he met on his journey and the places he's been to. When talking to the gypsy, “He thought for a moment that it would be better to pay her fee and leave without learning a thing, that he was giving too much importance to his recurrent dream.” (Coelho 47), which shows that he gets discouraged after talking to her because her interpretation of him having to go to the pyramids was so literal. However, he later regains his belief in dreams when he meets Melchizedek, who tells him about Personal Legends. Personal Legends are a main contributing factor to the theme of dreams in the book as Melchizedek states “it's the desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on Earth.”(Coelho 22) Personal Legends are people’s dreams and desires that are destined to be fulfilled and through Santiago’s desires and journey, Coelho uses this to relay the message that you should follow your dreams.

Even though I find his messages generic, I still think the book is very well written and all of the messages are smoothly integrated into the story. I only read about the first half of the book but from what I read, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that enjoys philosophy, enjoys adventure, or has many ambitions. Personally, I didn’t like the book that much just because of the basic messages and themes but I feel like this book can be inspiring to people with dreams and things they want to accomplish because it's the story of a boy who dreams big and works hard to achieve that goal despite all of his setbacks and situation.