A Magical Fable About Following Your Dreams
Discover the magic of The Alchemist for yourself.
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is a story about an Andalusian shepherd and his dreams. Over 65 million copies of the book have been sold, it has been translated into 80 languages, and it has established itself as a contemporary literary classic.
What is it about this simple story that has captivated so many hearts?
Perhaps it's the motivating idea of rejecting society's superficial markers of success in order to discover and pursue your true interests.
Perhaps it's Coelho's sophisticated but approachable approach to large issues like fate, agency, and spirituality.
Perhaps it's the deeply passionate yet decidedly unorthodox love tale that anchors the storyline.
Perhaps it's because, as the narrative points out, the simplest things are sometimes the most intriguing, resonant, and powerful.
This book reveals the hidden meanings and complex symbolism used in The Alchemist, allowing you to determine for yourself the basis of its continuing attraction. It also provides timeless lessons that you may use in your own life.
1. Dreams lead to our most profound wants.
Paulo Coelho's 1988 book is a deceptively simple story. On the surface, it tells the narrative of Santiago, a shepherd who leaves his home in the Spanish countryside in quest of wealth. Scratch a bit deeper, however, and we find an allegory of self-discovery—of the journey we must all take if we are to unearth and achieve our most profound goals.
For Santiago, the impetus for this quest is a reoccurring dream from his boyhood. It's fitting that a dream puts The Alchemist's narrative into action. The story employs a variety of repeating elements, including omens, fate, and alchemy, but the dream is possibly the most essential of all. In reality, the narrative starts and concludes with a dream.
So what was Santiago's dream?
Let's start by setting the scene; the specifics will be vital later. Santiago has had a long day looking at his flock of sheep in the hills of Spain. He hunts for a place to stay for the night and decides on an abandoned church. The church's roof has disintegrated, and a sycamore tree has sprouted where the church sacristy formerly stood. Santiago falls asleep among the tree's branches. He sleeps and dreams. In his dreams, a child emerges. She grabs Santiago's hand and transfers him to Egypt's pyramids, a destination he has never been to in his life. The youngster informs Santiago that if he visits the pyramids, he will discover a treasure. But before she can tell him exactly where he'll discover this treasure, Santiago awakes.
Convinced that the dream has a secret significance, he goes to a fortune teller and requests that she analyze it. She informs him that the dream implies he should go to the pyramids and locate a treasure. Santiago is irritated since this is a simpler interpretation than he imagined. But the fortune-teller corrects him. She informs him that in life, the simplest things are the most spectacular, and only the smartest can comprehend them.
Santiago pursues his ambition. He sells his sheep and travels to Egypt. However, he also aspires to travel due to a long-standing desire. In truth, Santiago abandoned a life of theological study to become a shepherd in order to follow his yearning for independence and travel, much to his parents' dismay. Throughout the book, dreams, whether direct or indirect, frequently represent the dreamer's deepest aspirations.
However, dreams in The Alchemist serve a more complex purpose than just expressing a desire. Shortly before starting his quest, Santiago meets a figure named Melchizedek. Melchizedek, dressed eccentrically as a shabby old man, truly embodies a supernatural monarch. Melchizedek exposes Santiago to a vital concept: the "Soul of the World." This is basically the world's spiritual structure, which includes the souls of all living and nonliving beings. But, while this structure is all around us, it is up to us to connect with it. One way the soul of the world interacts with us is through our dreams. So, by listening to and acting on our dreams, we may tap into the spiritual force of the Soul of the World.
Let us now return to the first dream. Santiago's vision of buried gold transports him from Spain to Africa, where criminals steal all he owns. He rebuilds his wealth by working in a crystal shop, traveling through the desert with a camel caravan, being involved in warfare between warring desert tribes, falling in love at a desert oasis, and meeting a true alchemist. Santiago faces diversions at every turn, whether positive (love or fortune) or negative (conflict or suffering), that threaten to derail him from pursuing his ideal. Despite these setbacks, he remains determined and eventually gets to the pyramids. He observes a scarab beetle scuttling over the sand and interprets it as an omen, so he starts digging.
As he shovels sand, two young guys see him and believe he is hiding riches. They assault him, attempting to seize the wealth. Santiago eventually tells them that he's digging here because of something he witnessed in his dream. The guys release him, but they are contemptuous. He shouldn't be so gullible as to believe in dreams, argues one. After all, he has always had a recurrent fantasy, but he has never been so idiotic as to commit his entire life to following it.
What about the young man's dream? If he ever visits Spain and comes upon a dilapidated chapel in the countryside, he should dig down beneath a sycamore tree to discover immeasurable wealth.
In this way, Santiago's dream brings him full circle. On his return home, he discovers the riches. The gypsy's insight proves correct: Santiago could not have found the riches more easily. However, in order to discover it, he had to embark on an astonishing voyage.
2. The cosmos gives everyone of us a personal legend.
Although Melchizedek, the disguised elderly monarch, makes only a brief appearance in The Alchemist, his conversation with Santiago resonates throughout the novel, shaping Santiago's journey as he strives to understand the principles imparted by Melchizedek. We've previously talked about the Soul of the World, but Melchizedek also tells Santiago he needs to discover his "Personal Legend."
Everyone, according to Melchizedek, has their own legend. It's what you really want to accomplish. But few of us ever do this. When we are young, we have a strong understanding of our personal legend. As we get older, most of us accept society's message that our personal legends are simply too difficult to achieve and that we should instead focus on living safely and pleasantly.
Melchizedek, on the other hand, believes that everyone may reach their personal legend if they set their minds to it. They only need to desire it sufficiently. If you have a genuine desire for something, it is not solely your own; instead, it is a desire that the universe has created, and the universe will support you in achieving it.
Santiago encounters two additional figures associated with his personal legend while traveling. The first is an Englishman whose personal legend is to be an alchemist. Santiago and the Englishman take quite different approaches to attaining their individual personal legends. Santiago investigates the environment around him, while the Englishman immerses himself in literature. While traveling with the caravan, they rapidly become friends, but they also challenge each other. Santiago learns the value of studying and reading from the Englishman, but the Englishman may learn more from Santiago, who demonstrates that life and experience are richer texts than any academic book.
The second figure represents an alchemist. When Santiago encounters him in a desert oasis, the alchemist says that by living out his personal legend, he has achieved the status of a real alchemist—someone who can transform material from one form to another, even turning metal into gold. Other alchemists, he claims, fail because they are simply concerned with producing gold rather than realizing their own personal legends. Through the idea of the alchemist, Coelho criticizes those who labor for superficial pleasures, such as cash or gold, rather than tuning into deeper wants.
Both the alchemist and Melchizedek inform Santiago that the only way to discover his personal legend is to listen to his heart. But when Santiago attempts to accomplish this, he feels confused and upset; his heart just refuses to comply. It's full of concerns and anxieties. He is concerned about his distant lover, overwhelmed by beauty, and beats rapidly when he is afraid. The alchemist assures him. This is a positive indicator, he argues. Santiago's heart is beating and experiencing things. He should continue listening to it.
What happens when his heart urges him to quit seeking his personal legend? Santiago wonders. When does it warn him that pursuing a goal puts his riches and romantic relationship at risk?
When his heart discourages him from his mission, the alchemist advises Santiago to communicate back to it and reassure it. Ignoring his heart is not an option; once he learns to listen to it, he will be unable to stop. So, although he gets his heart's knowledge, Santiago must also advise his heart when it fails. When Santiago finally instructs his heart to be loyal and not be afraid of sorrow, it begins to share the wisdom of the Soul of the World with him.
3. Love is not the same as possession.
The Alchemist is a narrative with many meanings and concepts, and each person interprets it differently. However, for many people, it is fundamentally a love story.
One of the novel's most engaging narrative strands is Santiago and Fatima's tale. Santiago encounters Fatima at a desert oasis, where the caravan he is traveling with has paused to avoid becoming embroiled in a brewing battle between rival desert tribes. He first sees her at a well, where she has come to fill her water jar. Santiago stands at the well every day, hoping to talk to her. They discuss their aspirations and dreams during these quick talks, and they soon become engaged to marry.
Through Fatima, Coelho raises concerns about love and possession: Can you genuinely own what you love? And if you don't actually love something, can you ever fully own it? At every stage of his trip, Santiago must relinquish items he treasures, such as his herd of sheep upon leaving Spain, his acquired money when robbed in Tangiers, and the gold bestowed upon him by the alchemist at the pyramids.
The most difficult aspect is saying goodbye to Fatima. Santiago wonders if achieving his personal legend is truly worth leaving her behind. Isn't she also part of his personal legend now?
Fatima views things differently.
Fatima instructs Santiago to continue his quest to the pyramids. She had always hoped that the desert would deliver her a tremendous gift, and now she sees that gift in Santiago. She informs him that she has become a part of his personal legend, and if that is the case, she will still be around when he returns. She is a lady of the desert who understands that men must depart in order to return. She also understands that if they do not return, their spirit has simply gone on—becoming an animal, a sand dune, or another piece of the spirit of the world.
The alchemist validates Fatima's viewpoint. Santiago claims that he stays in the oasis because he does not trust his love for Fatima—that if he left, he would not return. Leaving Fatima and then returning to her would demonstrate Santiago's love for her most purely.
Coelho explores the significance of love in a larger sense, particularly the love represented in the cosmos, in the novel. The moment in which Santiago must demonstrate to inquisitive tribesmen that he is, indeed, an alchemist is a vivid example of this.
The alchemist informs them that in three days, the youngster will demonstrate his alchemical abilities by converting himself into the wind. Santiago has no clue how he'll handle this. However, he has learned to communicate in the language of the cosmos. He requests the desert to convert him into the wind, explaining that he is in love with a lady and wishes to return to her in the guise of a desert wind. The desert claims it can't assist him, but it does instruct him to speak to the sand, who then tells him to speak to the sun. Santiago expresses his affection for all of the natural components in the language of the universe. Nobody has the capacity to aid him; Santiago realizes that these natural elements, like him, are merely attempting to pursue their own paths. He is one of them.
This knowledge, however, does not transform him into a blast of air. But the desert, the wind, and the sun are so enthralled by the discussion of love and the universe that they combine to produce a spectacular desert breeze. At this point, Santiago becomes a genuine alchemist.
4. It's up to you to follow the signs of your fate.
The Alchemist is based on an unavoidable tension: the conflict between fate and free will. Why must we exert so much effort to achieve our personal legend if it is determined by the cosmos? Conversely, if we fail to attain our personal legend, shouldn't we blame the cosmos instead of ourselves? Santiago grapples with these questions throughout the novel. In the end, a conversation with a camel driver solves his internal dilemma. But first, let us discuss another fundamental motif: omens.
In The Alchemist, omens serve as cosmic signposts. They are items or events imbued with significance that can lead us along a path or provide a look into the future. Omens punctuate the plot. Melchizedek offers Santiago two stones at the beginning of his voyage to help him understand omens. When Santiago arrives at the pyramids, he sees the scarab beetle as an omen, revealing the location of the hidden wealth. But the most ominous omen comes when Santiago observes two hawks engaged in airborne combat. He recognizes this as an omen, indicating that an opposing tribe would assault the desert oasis where he and his caravan are resting. This turns out to be correct.
The cosmos collaborates with Santiago to help him achieve his destiny through these omens. In addition, characters during Santiago's voyage frequently exclaim the word maktub, which means "It is written," at crucial moments, suggesting that fate determines the course of Santiago's journey.
Why should we strive to achieve our personal legends if we are destined to fulfill them? Why do so many individuals fail at their attempts? Will what is intended to certainly come to pass?
Let us return to the camel driver. After witnessing the omen of the hawks, Santiago informs the camel driver. This camel driver has visited several seers in an attempt to predict his destiny. The wisest seer, he informs Santiago, states that only God knows the future. Seers just estimate based on current omens.
Paying attention to the omens around us enables us to better our current situation and influence our future. In other words, living in the present moment is the key to achieving your future goals.
Final Summary
Let us conclude with a quick overview of the events and topics in Paulo Coelho's masterpiece, The Alchemist. Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, chooses to travel to Egypt's pyramids after meeting the enigmatic king Melchizedek, who tells him that it is his destiny to chase a recurrent dream he has had since boyhood.
Santiago encounters challenges and distractions on his journey. Robbed, Santiago must restore his riches by working in a crystal shop, encounters a disruption in his travels due to a desert battle, meets an intellectual but inexperienced Englishman, and falls in love with Fatima. He also meets an alchemist, who teaches him the value of listening to his heart and connecting with the soul of the world. Near the pyramids, he realizes his dream in a roundabout way, proving it prophetic.
The Alchemist grapples with themes of fate, destiny, love, and our place in the universe. Its overarching message is that, when we accept we are one with the universe, we can achieve extraordinary feats and realize our deepest desires.