Paulo Coelho s The Alchemist: Fulfilling One s Personal Legend

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1 Paulo Coelho s The Alchemist: Fulfilling One s Personal Legend Author: Firdoos Ahmad Bhat Lecturer GDC Pulwama, J&K firdoosahmadbhat@gmail.com Abstract: The Alchemist is about a boy, Santiago, and his physical journey from Spain to Africa. The journey becomes more spiritual than physical. The boy learns some of the most important lessons about life. He realizes his own place and becomes a true alchemist. He is able to understand how all things in the world are helping each other in realizing their respective dreams as they all come from a single soul- the Soul of the World. Here I will attempt to show how Santiago s journey and self realization can help us understand our own individual situations. Key words: Fear, Dream, Love, Alchemist, Treasure, Pilgrim, Personal Legend Paulo Coelho s The Alchemist retells the story: The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again through a Dream, a story from The Book of the One Thousand and One Nights a collection of Middle Eastern folktales in Arabic. The novel was published in Portuguese in 1988 and became an international bestseller when the English translation appeared in It has since then been translated into many languages globally. The novel was written in only two weeks and Coelho explains he was able to write at this pace because the story was already written in (his) soul. The USA Today described the novel as a modern classic. The novel tells the story of a young boy and his journey towards achieving his Personal Legend. A young Andalusian shepherd boy, Santiago, has a dream about his treasure buried in Egypt, near the Pyramids. He sets out on a journey to find it. However the journey, with all symbolic undercurrents that one can discern from the novel, turns out to be a spiritual quest; one that all men and women must undertake in order to realise the full potential and worth of their being. Santiago, the boy, stands for all humanity. Santiago s dream does not let him sleep. At one occasion, while sleeping inside an abandoned church near an enormous Sycamore tree, he again dreams of his treasure, and as we proceed towards the end of the novel we will see that it is at this very spot he will finally find his treasure buried among the roots of the Sycamore tree. But he must go on his pilgrimage to the pyramids first. He must undergo all the trials and tribulations 35

2 to fully prepare him and make him an enlightened human being who knows and understands his relation with other things and the Soul of World. The boy knows: To realize one s destiny is a person s only obligation. (The Alchemist). Santiago has to learn the life s lesson and he knows it well that there is only one way to learn It s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey (The Alchemist 70). To reach his destination, Santiago must first learn to listen to his heart and understand that his dream or his Personal Legend is not just only his own but a part of the Soul of the Universe; and the Universal Language through which it speaks. He must undergo a spiritual transformation in the same way as lead transforms into gold by a chemical process. First lesson that Santiago learns from Melchizedek, a stranger who claims himself to be a king of a distant place is what a Personal Legend is. Melchizedek explains to the boy that a Personal Legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. (The Alchemist 12) Santiago s sheep represent the people who abandon their dreams and become more interested in other people or things than their own personal legends. They are like Santiago s sheep living a mundane life. Like the sheep all they think about is food and water. (The Alchemist 5) Santiago s parents have continually struggled for the basics of life and have smothered their own ambitions accordingly. They live in beautiful Andalucia, with its picturesque villages and rolling hills, but for them it is not a place of dreams. The novel shows that when you firmly decide to realise your dream there is a force that whets your appetite with a taste of success. (The Alchemist 16) The characters like the Baker and the crystal merchant that are oblivious to their personal legends are no more than sheep that do not discover the wonderful lands that Santiago does during his travels as a shepherd. They are content with their materialistic desires. They have limited the scope of their life and have missed the calling of their dreams. The Baker had wanted, when he was a boy to become a traveller but had decided to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he s an old man, he s going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of. (The Alchemist 36

3 12) He lost the ability to appreciate his own personal being and eventually missed out all that he is actually made for. Santiago understands that if he does not give heed to the dreams and omens that come his way at the present moment he may never be able to realise his potential and his personal legend in future as most of the people do in their lives. Throughout the novel, repeatedly, the concept of personal legend is explained as the only force by which man can live a satisfying life. This personal legend seems to be something like G B Shaw s concept of life force which continuously drives a man towards higher goals in order to achieve oneness with the Over Soul. In The Alchemist, the personal legend is the same force that brings perfection to the universe when all natural things strive to achieve their personal legends; everything always evolving into something higher with a new personal legend; a new dream, and the pursuing of it. Santiago, like all men, has to deal with all the distractions that come his way while he is striving hard to reach his goal. Before he even begins his journey he has to give up his flock of sheep, his profession which he had chosen at one time in his life. He loved to be in the company of his sheep and travel places with them. The flock is his wealth and is dear to him but for his higher goal he has to sacrifice all his present material desires and prepare himself for sacrificing even higher ideal of love when his personal legend demands so from him. He can t delay nor can he postpone his tryst with his destination; all other things must wait for their turn. His passion for Fatima is strong that he always has the thought of her in his mind till the end. She in herself is no less than a treasure. Santiago says to the alchemist about his love for Fatima: I also have Fatima. She is a treasure greater than anything else I have won. (The Alchemist 64). His heart gets heavy when he thinks about departing from her. He does not want to go to the Pyramids but wants to stay with her at the oasis where he had met her. He can t abandon her. He says to the alchemist. I want to stay at the oasis... I ve found Fatima, and, as far as I m concerned, she s worth more than treasure. (The Alchemist 66) But then the Alchemist gives him the best lesson about life and love. He says that it is not that we ignore our personal legends for love but for our own fears. The Alchemist makes the boy understand what the real love is. That if he abandons his goal and continues to live here with Fatima, the omens will continue to speak of (the) 37

4 treasure night after night, at the oasis, and Fatima will be unhappy because she ll feel it was she who interrupted (the) quest. (The Alchemist 66). Then he will not be able to blame her for getting his treasure buried forever. He will come to realise that it was not Fatima but his own fear of not coming back from his journey that compelled him to stay back and abandon the pursuit of his treasure. True love never stops one from achieving one s personal legend as it speaks the Language of the World and understands everything. Santiago gets ready to go with the alchemist with Fatima s love in his heart and his eyes set on his goal. After fulfilling his personal legends he understands he has all the time to live happily with Fatima as we see at the end of the novel when has realised his dream he says, I m coming, Fatima, (The Alchemist 94) The Alchemist makes Santiago understand that he needs to purify himself in order to achieve his personal legend in the same way a base metal is purified and converted into gold. The Soul of the World is present in all things, humans and metals, desert and wind and in all nature. All things co-ordinate and help in achieving the perfection and harmony that all individual goals contribute to as when something evolves, everything around that thing evolves as well. (The Alchemist 77) One needs to communicate with the spirit of the world and it the heart that speaks to it and understands what it has to say. Everyman is an alchemist he needs to penetrate the soul of the world and discover the reserved treasure for him. It is through this communication and coordination Santiago is able to transform himself into the wind. When the tribesmen in the desert capture Santiago and the alchemist there is only way left to them to save themselves from execution and that is, Santiago must show to them that he is a true alchemist who understands the forces of nature. Santiago has to transform himself into the wind to show his extraordinary powers. He is overwhelmed by a deep fear as he does not have an idea about how to do this. The alchemist says to him, If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. (The Alchemist 80)Santiago is placed atop a cliff to show his magical powers. He stares at the vast desert before him not knowing what to do. Suddenly, he starts addressing the desert: when I look out over your sands, I am also looking at her. I want to return to her, and I need your help so that I can turn myself into the wind. (The Alchemist 81) The desert responds to him by asking him questions about love and about universal language that is 38

5 common to all nature. After answering to the questions he could feel the wind approaching and touching his face and when the wind asks him that they are two different things and he can t be like it, he replies that it is not true because he has inside him everything: 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. I want to be like you, able to reach every corner of the world, cross the seas, blow away the sands that cover my treasure, and carry the voice of the woman I love. (The Alchemist 83). He wants the wind to talk to him to explore the limitless possibilities that they both hold as they are written by a single hand. The most dramatic scene in the novel comes when the wind starts blowing like anything filling the sky with sand and blowing the tents. This all is power of love that is in Santiago s heart and only love understands and transforms things as it has direct contacts with the Soul of the World. Santiago understood that the Soul of the World is the Soul of the God and the Soul of the God is in his own heart and when they are in harmony a man can perform miracles. Because when you achieve that level of oneness and have a desire to do something all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it, (The Alchemist 23) The bond that Santiago has established with the Soul of the World is helping him at every moment to take him to his goal and deal him with all the tests that he has to undergo in order to perfect and prepare his own self for that final victory that he is born to taste. He has understood the language that God speaks in and that the hearts of all things use to communicate and understand each other. It is in this language that the boy asks the sun about love; the Soul of the World. The sun replies to him: I can see the Soul of the World. It communicates with my soul, and together we cause the plants to grow and the sheep to seek out shade. From where I am and I'm a long way from the earth I learned how to love. I know that if I came even a little bit closer to the earth, everything there would die, and the Soul of the World would no longer exist. So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living. (The Alchemist 84) The boy continues to ride through the desert in search of his treasure; only his heart knows where it is buried in the earth. His heart leads him and he knows his treasure is where his 39

6 heart is. He digs into the earth where his treasure is supposed to be but could not find it there. He exhausts himself and almost becomes unconscious like the old man on his eighty fourth day of his being unable to catch a fish in The Old Man and The Sea. All others who were helping Santiago dig the ground went away and he is left to himself as man is, in general, left to himself when his pursuits seem unpractical and illogical to others. The pyramids seem to laugh at Santiago and in their laughter is hidden the address of his treasure. His heart bursts into joy. He comes back from his journey and digs at the base of the same Sycamore tree near the abandoned church and gets his treasure. The sky, the sun and the wind all knew the story and Santiago too realizes that all the hardships he had to undergo simply were preparing him for his treasure; for his establishing contacts with all things. He had to see the Pyramids. They re beautiful, as the wind says to him. REFERENCES 1. The Alchemist: Translated by Alan R. Clarke, 1992, ISBN Available in PDF format at April 14, Cowles, Gregory ( ). Inside the List. The New York Times. Retrieved Interview with Paulo Coelho. Goodreads. March Retrieved Paulo Coelho. The Guardian Retrieved Pool, Hannah ( ). Question Time The Guardian. Retrieved