Alchemist's Spiritual Confusion

In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, life is given to inanimate objects in order to help the reader understand the themes of the book and Santiago’s journey. There are many confusing themes and spiritual concepts in the novel, and giving life to these objects was a clever way to make it easier for the reader to understand There are many times along Santiago‘s journey when he asks talk to these objects, and it helps the reader to better understand the characters thoughts and feelings, Even though the book was to spiritual for me, I do believe it had good lessons and was a worthy journey.

When Santiago first begins his journey, he encountered the old king of Salem. The king encouraged him to follow his personal legend and said “Take these,‘ holding out a white stone and a black stone’ they are called Urim and Thummim. The black signifies ‘yes’ and the white ‘no‘“. The old king gives him these stones to help him read any omens he may encounter on his journey.

When I read this part of the novel, it helped me to understand that Santiago would have to make difficult deci7 sions on the way to his treasure. I think that the stones were a way that the author could convey Santiago‘s mindset to the readers, and that when he saw the omens, he didn’t really need the stones and he just followed what his heart told him. I prefer books that do not have things like the stones that really stand for something else, al- though I do think that this style of writing makes for a more complex storyline.

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When Santiago is at the Oasis, he speaks to the spirit of the world for the first time. A sudden, fleeting image came to the boy: an army with its swords at the ready, riding into the oasis“.

Before this, the boy had just been walking in the desert, and he sat down and saw two hawks. He was watching the hawks‘ fight, and suddenly the dived into the spirit of the world. I don‘t think that giving the world life was necessary to the story. I understand that being able to see this part of the future helped Santiago achieve his personal legend, but it really confused me as a reader. At this point, I had lost some interest in the novel because I couldn‘t think what seeing into the future could represent in real life, and also because the story lost its reality. Before I had thought that following your personal legend or reading omens was something that you could do in real life, but when I read about seeing into the future I just assumed everything in the novel was fiction.

Near the end of Santiago‘sjourney, he talks to the desert, wind, and sun To the desert he says “but you can at least understand that somewhere in your sands there is a woman waiting for me, And that‘s why I have to turn myself into the wind”. Santiago is trying to turn into the wind so the tribesman will not kill him. The desert cannot help him so he also talks to the wind, and the sun (heaven). I did not think that any off this was necessary to the essential themes and ideas of the story. To me, it was boring and I could not see what it had to do with the storyline. Again, I can’t see what lesson this talking to the sun and turning into the wild is try— ing to teach in real life.

I think that when writing gets to spiritual or fictional people start to lose interest in the story, as it gets confusing Overall I think that giving inanimate objects a voice was unnecessary, but there were some exceptions such as the Urim and Thummim. I thought that thejoure ney was good, even though I found many ofthe details unnecessary and boring My favorite part of the novel was when the treasure turned out to be where he was in the first setting. However ifthat had happened to me, I would have been very frus» trated to go all that wayjust to go back. Many parts of this novel were necessary, and many were not.