Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

The Alchemist, a novel written by Paulo Coelho, tells the story of a boy named Santiago who is on a journey to find his treasure. Santiago gives us a glimpse of why achieving your dreams is the best thing that you can do in life, and sometimes on the path of achieving your dreams, it’s not always easy. He also meets many people who will influence his life one way or another, but the two that especially influence his life is the Crystal Merchant and the Englishman. The Crystal Merchant and the Englishman are very significant in the story because the Crystal Merchant taught the boy that change is a very important factor in life and the Englishman taught Santiago that you shouldn’t yearn for the treasure that comes with your journey, but first …show more content…
He spots the man reading many books. The Englishman was studying them all carefully, and paid no attention to Santiago in the beginning until a man spots Urim and Thummin in Santiago’s hands and calls him out for it. The man tells the boy about omens, and how he wanted to know the Alchemist’s secret into turning regular elements into gold. The Englishman wanted to pursue his dreams, but he didn’t want to achieve in the right way. Santiago learns from the Englishman that you first have to walk down the path to your dreams. You shouldn’t take shortcuts. In doing this, you will receive your treasure. If not, you will go home always empty-handed.
Therefore, the Alchemist shows a story of a boy named Santiago who learns many things and meets many significant people on his road to his personal legend. We learn from both the Englishman and the Crystal Merchant that we have to always achieve our dreams the right way and pursue it when we can because you never know what might tempt you to let go of achieving your dreams. We should never yearn for our treasure without taking the path to finding that treasure, because it’s not what’s at the end that’s the real treasure. It’s the journey that we take that makes that end treasure