Skip to main content

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - A unique novel for Young Adults

 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - A unique novel for Young Adults

- Ajay Sahu

This book was my first love when it comes to reading novels, and it still is. My favourite quote is:  "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true". This is also the main philosophy of the novel and the advice followed by the protagonist throughout his whole journey. 

The story may be encapsulated like this: Santiago, a shepherd, seeks to know the significance of a recurring dream from a Gypsy fortune-teller. The woman sees it as a prophecy, predicting that the boy will find a huge fortune among the Egyptian pyramids. After leaving, Santiago meets an elderly monarch, Melchizedek, or King of Salem, who advises him to sell his sheep and travel to Egypt to fulfil his "Personal Legend." A man who promises to be able to take Santiago to the pyramids actually robs him of the money he earned from his flock soon after his arrival in Africa. Santiago then works for a crystal dealer in order to save enough money to travel to the pyramids. Along the way, the young seeker meets an Englishman in quest of an alchemist, and the two continue their journey together. Santiago meets and falls in love with an Arabian girl named Fatima when they arrive at an oasis, and he proposes marriage to her. She vows to marry him only when he has completed his voyage. He is initially dissatisfied but subsequently learns that true love will not stop and that one must not sacrifice one's destiny to it, since doing so would strip it of its truth. Soon, the young man meets a wise alchemist who teaches him how to discover his true nature. They risk a voyage through a warring tribes' area, where Santiago must prove his oneness with "the soul of the world" by turning himself into a dust storm before being allowed to continue, with his life on the line. When he starts digging near the pyramids, he is robbed again, but he learns from the thief's leader that the treasure he was looking for was all along in the wrecked church where he had his dream in the first place.

Now as you go through the story you will find it is a big metaphor for all of us. Everything is so relatable especially to us, 'Young Adults'. He has a dream and he wants to pursue it but obstacles face him, which he overcomes. He falls in love on the way. Typical teenager. And in the end, after some gruesome times, is successful at achieving it. Don't tell me you cannot relate to it. This is the most influential, powerful, and impactful book I've ever come across. Each time I read it, I've something new to implement in my life. The book's central theme is about realizing one's destiny. In other words, having a dream and making it true. And how beautifully Paulo Coelho portrays that through the story. What a hero you were, Santiago! 

The book teaches us to get out of our comfort zone to explore the world, and not be afraid of the unknown. If you do that, everyone around you will come to your aid like the King, the Alchemist himself, or the Englishman, exemplifying my favourite quote in practice. The absolute beauty of it is that it opens our minds to multiple horizons and adds to our creativity and perception.

Santiago who was merely a teenager himself, inspires the Gen Z that you can, no matter what, obtain even the forbidden fruit if you truly wish to. For me personally, it has been a legend that acts as a self-help book more than just a fiction novel. I look up at the characters in it for inspiration and idolize them. If you haven't read it or did but couldn't relate, just read it with an open mind and find out for yourself!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue

 A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue - Mayura Bhandari “The Tale of The Rose” is a retelling of the popular children’s fairy tale, “The Beauty and The Beast”. It is one of the short stories in the collection by Emma Donoghue, called Kissing The Witch . The story is narrated from the point of a young woman who describes herself as having an appetite for magic. She doesn’t desire suitors, finery or riches. When her father’s ships get lost at sea, her cushy life disappears. But without despair, she gets to work. She washes her father’s clothes, finding peace and satisfaction in it. When fortune smiles upon their family, her siblings ask for riches and finery, but she desires a red rose bud. Her father returns and hands her the rose, explaining that the price of that flower was that he had sold her to a Beast. Obediently, she heads over to the castle, nervous and excited for a new chapter in her life. She recalls the lore the villagers told her. About a young ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Psychological Analysis Of Waiting For Godot

Psychological criticism adopts the methods of "Reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. Here, we are going to apply the same form of criticism on Samuel Beckett’s play, ‘Waiting for Godot.’  Unanswered questions behind the characters behaviour are answered here. We would be looking further to the psychoanalytical approach, Sigmund Freud being the important proponent here. A major focus on the language and how dreams reflect our mental personality are given in his second essay, “Interpretation of Dreams.” The plot clearly states that Estragon has nightmares and Vladimir never addresses them and remains unhelpful towards it, being the one who is aware about their sufferings. The nightmares contain flashbacks and images of a gruesome and horrific event that has hap...
1 comment
Read more

Marxism in Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett, the most eminent Irish playwright wrote ‘’Waiting for Godot’’ in French in 1949 and then translated it into English in 1954. This play has been performed as a drama of the absurd with astonishing success in Europe, America and the rest of the world in the post second world war era. For this reason, Martin Esslin calls it, “One of the successes of the post-war theatre” (Esslin, Martin, 1980) In this play, the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait expectantly to see a man simply known as Godot, a character who does not make an appearance in the play, despite being the titular character. The play begins with waiting for Godot and ends with waiting for Godot. Marxism refers to the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism. Marxism introduced ideas such as Dialectical Materialism, Alienation, and Economic Determination. Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ has a minimalist setting...
Post a Comment
Read more