The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho
Alchemy
 ALCHEMY—the medieval forerunner of
chemistry, based on the supposed
transformation of matter—especially that of
base metals into gold
 Search for the Philosopher’s Stone which
was believed to turn base metals into silver
or gold
 Search for the Elixir of Life which was
believed to confer youth and longevity
 Forerunner of chemistry and medicine
Alchemy continued . . .
 Alchemy differs from modern science in the inclusion of
principles related to mythology, religion, spirituality.
 Literature/film connections:
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It is a common theme in fantasy fiction.
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Magic, magical realism, witchcraft
What is this story?
The Alchemist reads like a fable. It is also
bildungsroman and has elements of a picaresque novel
and magical realism as well.
FABLE—a story that conveys a lesson as an exemplum-an example of what one should or should not do.
BILDUNGSROMAN--the German term for a coming-ofage story in which an adolescent protagonist comes to
adulthood by a process of experience and disillusionment.
What is this story? (cont.)
 PICARESQUE—a story of a young knave's
misadventures and escapades narrated in comic or
satiric scenes. The picaroon frequently travels from
place to place engaging in a variety of jobs for several
masters and getting into mischief. The picaresque
novel is usually episodic in nature and realistic in its
presentation of the seamier aspects of society.
 MAGICAL REALISM—a literary genre or style
associated especially with Latin America that
incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into
otherwise realistic fiction.
Archetypes
 THE JOURNEY—sends the hero in search of some
truth or information necessary to restore harmony,
justice, fertility, etc. and includes the trials and struggles
the hero faces along the way.
 THE QUEST—the search for someone or some
talisman that, when found and brought back, will
restore harmony, justice, fertility, etc.
 THE INITIATION—a moment, usually psychological, in
which an individual comes into maturity. The INITIATE
gains a new awareness into the nature of
circumstances and understands his/her responsibility
for trying to resolve the dilemma.
Personal Legend
 According to Melchizedek in The Alchemist, a
Personal Legend is “what you have always wanted
to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young,
knows what their Personal Legend is…But, as time
passes, a mysterious force begins to convince
them that it will be impossible for them to realize
their Personal Legen.” (Coelho 21)
 The Personal Legend is something that everyone
has and knows about when they are young, but
they become too afraid to achieve it as they grow
older.
Personal Legend (continued)
 The Alchemist stresses the
importance of one’s“obligation” to find
one’s own Personal Legend—a
concept that is closely connected to
the idea of destiny or fate.
 A sign we are following our legend—
enthusiasm for what we are doing
“Introduction”
Coelho suggests that there are FOUR OBSTACLES that
keep us from following our legend:
1.The message throughout childhood that what we want
is impossible
2.Love—fear of hurting those around us
3.Fear of the defeats we will meet—”I didn’t want it
anyway.”
4.Fear of realizing the dream—our guilty feelings for
having fulfilled our dream when others haven’t
“Prologue”
PROLOGUE: A separate introductory section of a literary
or musical work.
The story of Narcissus—with a twist
Why the twist?
Why do we love another—according to the story?
What is the warning?
How does the story of Narcissus tie in to our quest to
follow our Personal Legend?
Consider: What role does selfishness play in our
Personal Legend?
Destiny
 It refers to a predetermined course
of events.
 It is defined as the predetermined
future of an individual.
 It is based on the belief that there is
a fixed natural order to the universe
Destiny continued . . .
 While destiny may be seen as a
fixed sequence of events, it can
also be that the individual chooses
his or her own destiny by selecting
different paths throughout his or
her lifetime.
Fate
 It refers to the force that
causes events in one’s life
to be inevitable.
 The implication is that an
individual cannot control or
avoid his or her fate.
 It is often seen as the final
outcome in a course of
events.
Fate continued . . .
 The word “fate” is a
derivative of “fatality” or
“fatalism.”
 It implies that there is
no choice, and it
ultimately ends in
death.
So what is the difference?
While the difference between the two is subtle,
there is a distinction:
 Destiny refers to the course of events that we
may choose to follow in order to achieve a goal.
 Fate is the force that controls everything that
happens to us along the way.
“Difference” (continued)
“Destiny is that which we are drawn towards and Fate is
that which we run into.”
--Wyatt Earp
“Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come
uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a
man does with these raw materials.”
--Howard Thurman
Fate in The Alchemist
 “. . . At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of
what’s happening to us, and our lives become
controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.” (18)
 The “lie”—that we are, indeed, in control of our lives.
Omens
 An OMEN (also called PORTENT or PRESAGE) is a
phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often
signifying the advent of change.
 Omens may be considered “good” or “bad,” but the
term is more often used in a foreboding sense, as with
the word “ominous.”
Urim and Thummim
 “They are called Urim and Thumimm. The black
signifies ‘yes,’ and the white ‘no.’ When you are unable
to read the omens, they will help you to do so.. . . But, if
you can, try to make your own decision “ (30).
 Santiago uses them only once—in a marketplace at the
beginning of his journey.
 They fell out of the pouch at times, which he took as an
omen.
 Ultimately, he didn’t need them because he watched for
the omens that life provided.
Obstacles
Obstacles that Santiago meets on his way to his
Personal Legend:
His parents think he should be a priest.
His sheep need him.
He doesn’t understand the language.
His money is stolen.
By the time he gets enough money to set out again, he
is comfortable with his life in the crystal shop.
Obstacles (continued)
 The warring tribes in the desert delay him .
 He falls in love with Fatima.
 The tribal warriors capture them and threaten to kill
them.
 He has to turn himself into the wind.
 He has to complete his journey alone.
 The war refugees beat him up at the Pyramids.
 He has to make the journey back home to the place
where he began his journey at the church with the
sycamore tree
The Gypsy Woman
 “As a child, the boy had always been frightened to
death that he would be captured by Gypsies, and this
childhood fear returned when the old woman took his
hands in hers” (12).
 “. . . dreams are the language of God. When he
speaks in our language, I can interpret what he has
said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul, it is
only you who can understand” (13).
 “’I am not going to charge you anything now,’ she said.
’But I want one-tenth of the treasure, if you find it’”(14).
 “It’s the simple things in life that are the most
extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand
them” (15).
Melchizedek
 “It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish.
Everyone, when they are young knows what their
Personal Legend is.
“At that point I their lives, everything is clear an
everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream,
and to yearn for everything they would like to see
happen to them in their lives” (21).
 “The Soul of the World is nourished by people’s
happiness. . . . To realize one’s destiny is a person’s
only real obligation. All things are one” (22).
Melchizedek (continued)
 “And when you want something, all the universe
conspires to help you achieve it” (22).
 “If you start out by promising what you don’t even have
yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting
it”(25).
 “In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the
omens” (29).
 “’Never stop dreaming,’ the old man had said. ‘Follow
the omens’” (62).
The Crystal Merchant
 “I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I will have no
reason to go on living” (55).
 “I’m just afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I
prefer just to dream about it” (55).
 “I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know
how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am”
(58).
 “Maktub . . . . [I]n your language it would mean
something like ‘It is written.’”
The Englishman
 “He believed in omens. All his life and all his studies
were aimed at finding the one true language of the
universe” (66)
 “Everything in life is an omen” (70).
 “In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When
you want something with all your heart, that’s when you
are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a
positive force . . It was the language with which all
things communicated” (78, 80).
 “It’s only those who are persistent , and willing to study
things deeply, who achieve the Master Work” (82).
The Camel Driver
 “But the desert is huge, and the horizons so distant,
that they make a person feel small, and as if he should
remain silent” (73).
 “We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our
life or our possessions and property. But this fear
evaporates when we understand that our life stories
and the history of the world were written by the same
hand” (76).
 “[W}hen you can’t go back, you have to worry only
about the best way of moving forward . . . Maktub” (77).
Camel Driver (continued)
 I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested
only in the present. If you can concentrate always on
the present, you’ll be a happy man” (85).
 “Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because
life is the moment we’re living in right now” (85).
 [The seer had told him], “the secret is here in the
present. If you pay attention to the present, what
comes later will be better” (103).
Fatima
 “She smiled, and that was certainly an omen—the
omen he had been awaiting, without knowing he was,
for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his
sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the
silence of the desert” (93).
 “When two such people encounter each other . . The
past and future become unimportant. . . .[There is only]
the incredible certainty that everything under the sun
has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that
evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in
the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would
have no meaning.” “Maktub, thought the boy” (93).
Fatima (continued)
 “‘Maktub,’ she said. ‘If I am really a part of your dream,
you’ll come back one day’” (97).
 “’Before this, I always looked to the desert with longing,’
said Fatima. ‘Now it will be with hope” (122).
The Alchemist
 “I had to test your courage. . . . Courage is the quality
most essential to understanding the Language of the
World” (111).
 “’When a person really desires something, all the
universe conspires to help that person to realize his
dream,’ said the alchemist, echoing the words of the
old king” (114).
 “She [Fatima] knows that men have to go away in order
to return. And she already has her treasure: it is you”
(118).
 “You must understand that love never keeps a man
from pursuing his Personal Legend” (120).
The Alchemist (continued)
 “If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never
spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had
found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of
a star, you would find nothing on your return” (123).
 “There is only one way to learn. . . It’s through action.
Everything you need to know you have learned through
your journey” (125).
 But you are in the desert. So immerse yourself in it.
The desert will give you an understanding of the world;
in fact, everything on the face of the earth will do that”
(127).
The Alchemist (continued)
 “Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it
came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day
return there” (127).
 “You will never be able to escape from your heart. So
it’s better to listen to what it has to say” (129).
 “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than
the suffering itself” (130).
 “ [T]he Soul of the World tests everything that was
learned along the way. . . .so that we can, in addition to
realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned
as we’ve moved toward that dream” (132).
The Alchemist (continued)
 “Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every
search ends with the victor’s being severely tested”
(132).
 “When you possess great treasures within you, and try
to tell others of them, seldom are you believed” (134).
 “Trust in your heart, but never forget that you’re in the
desert. . . . No one fails to suffer the consequences of
everything under the sun” (135).
 Your eyes show the strength of your soul” (136).
The Alchemist (continued)
 “Anyone who interferes with the Personal Legend of
another thing will never discover his own” (138).
 “If a person is living out his Personal Legend, he knows
everything he needs to know. There is only one thing
that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of
failure’ (141)
 “Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more
aware of their lives” (142).
 “From here on you will be alone” (153).
The Alchemist (continued)
 “From here on you will be alone” (153).
 “No matter what he does, every person on earth plays
a central role in the history of the world. And normally
he doesn’t know it” (158, 159).
Lessons
 “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that
makes life interesting.” (11)
 “When someone sees the same people every day, as
had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up
becoming a part of that person’s life. And then they
want the person to change. If someone isn’t what
others want them to be, the others become angry.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other
people should lead their lives, but none about his or her
own” (16).
 “I am like everyone else—I see the world in terms of
what I would like to see happen, not what actually
does” (40).
Lessons (continued)
 ”This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one” (41).
 [H}e realized that he had to choose between thinking of
himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an
adventurer in quest of his treasure” (42).
 “We have to take advantage when luck is on our side,
and do as much to help it as it’s doing to help us. It’s
called the principle of favorability. Or beginner’s luck”
(54).
 “Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the
same way” (56).
Lessons (continued)
 “[T]here was a language in the world that everyone
understood . . . .It was the language of enthusiasm, of
things accomplished with love and purpose, and as
part of a search for something believed in and desired”
(62).
 “He had worked for an entire year to make a dream
come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was
becoming less important. Maybe because that wasn’t
really his dream” (64).
 “[M]aking a decision was only the beginning of things.
When someone makes a decision, he is really diving
into a strong current that will carry him to places he had
never dreamed of when he first made the decision”
(68).
Lessons (continued)
 “Today, I understood something I didn’t see before:
every blessing ignored becomes a curse” (58).
 “[There is a] mysterious chain that links one thing to
another, the same chain that had caused him to
become a shepherd” (72).
 Everyone has his or her own way of learning things”
(84).
 “The world speaks many languages” (86).
 The lessons of the past
 The party of the present
 The dreams of the future
Lessons (continued)
 “The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the
more difficult things became . . . . he was being
constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and
courage. So he could not be hasty or impatient [or] he
would fail to see the signs and omens” (89).
 “. . . the language that everyone on earth was capable
of understanding in their heart. It was love. . . . It
required no explanation, just as the universe needs
none as it travels through endless time” (92, 93).
 “People are afraid to pursue their most important
dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve
them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them” (130).
Lessons (continued)
 “Most people see the world as a threatening place,
and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to
be a threatening place”(131).
 It is said that the darkest hour of the night came just
before the dawn” (132).
 “His heart told he boy what his strongest qualities were:
his courage in having given up his sheep and in trying
to live out his Personal Legend, and his enthusiasm
during the time he had worked at the crystal shop”
(134).
Lessons continued
 “All things are one” (135).
 “Death doesn’t change anything, the boy thought”
(142).
 “Yes, that’s what love is. It’s what makes the game
become the falcon, that falcon become the man, and
man, in his turn, the desert” (145). (Love= all things
“giving back” in the chain of life.)
 “I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans,
the stars, and everything created in the universe. We
were all made by the same hand, and we have the
same soul” (146).
Lessons(continued)
 “[T]here’s no need for iron to be the same as copper, or
copper the same as gold. Each performs its own exact
function as a unique being . . .” (149).
 “Love is the force that transforms and improves the
Soul of the World” (150).
 It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the
world we live in will be either better or worse,
depending on whether we become better or worse.
And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because
when we love, we always strive to be come better than
we are” (151).
Lessons (continued)
 “The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and
saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw
that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a
boy, could perform miracles” (152).
 “His life and his path had always provided him with
enough omens” (166).
Epilogue
EPILOGUE: A section or speech at the end of a book or
play that serves as a comment or conclusion to what has
happened.
“He thought of the many roads he had traveled. . . . If he
hadn’t believed in the significance of recurrent dreams, he
would not have met the Gypsy woman, the king, the thief,
or . . . ‘Well, it’s a long list. But the path was written in the
omens, and there is no way I could go wrong” (165).
Ultimately, the treasure lies within us. The key to
discovering that, however, is that we have to “travel,” to
observe, and to listen—the world is full of signs and
omens—if we take the time to notice.
Works Cited
Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. New York: Harper
Collins, 1993.