The Conflicts Which Santiago Faces in The Alchemist, a Novel by Paulo Coelho

In The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, the main character Santiago often referred to as “the boy” runs into many conflicts throughout the novel. He often faces challenging obstacles that are later resolved at the end of the novel an example of a conflict that the boy faces, is when he runs out of money during his travels and is forced to sell his shop. Another major conflict in the novel is when the boy loses his tour guide and has to stay around for a while to learn the language and make back the money he loses the boy is going after his personal legend, traveling to Egypt.

When the boy has to sell his sheep for money readers start to see the conflict between man and society.

Traveling without money is impossible but tending to his sheep is what he did for a living. Selling the wool from his sheep was his only way to make money. So being forced to sell his sheep was one major conflict and setback to his journey another major conflict in the novel was when the boy lost the man who was supposed to show him around.

The boy then had nothing. He was forced to learn the language and find everything on his own This was a major conflict because it slowed down his travels to find his personal legend.

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Having to sell his sheep, and losing his tour guide are just two of the many conflicts found in the novel. Santiago often ran into conflicts that he had to face in order to achieve his personal legend. The Alchemist was all about running into conflicts, or else finding his personal legend would have been easy.