In Paulo Coelho’s, The Alchemist, the theme of change and transformation of character . With each event and each obstacle Santiago encounters, Coelho teaches a lesson to his audience. Coelho has shown us his opinion on various topics through his characters by their actions and how they reacted to the various events that came upon them. He clearly expresses his feelings throughout the novel.On many occasions, the idea of a Personal Legend is brought up in the book.
A personal legend is the spiritual purpose of your life or your mission in the world. One of the most important and meaningful morals of this story is to fulfill your personal legend. Coelho strongly encourages his readers to complete their personal legend and follow their dreams, but as the book mentioned, many people never do either of those.
The reason why so many people do not is that they are afraid. They fear the idea of change. The crystal merchant was skeptical about Santiago’s ideas to improve his shop because he was afraid of the change that would result from it, but when we are to follow our dreams and fulfill our lives with meaning and a personal legend, we must do so without fear of anything.That leads to another important idea that is often found throughout the novel; focus on your journey, not the journey of others. The text told us that if we do not meet the standards that others set for us, they are going to be unhappy and will dislike you. We have set standards for everyone else, but for ourselves, we have no idea how to live our own lives and focus on our own journey. Coelho expresses that it is good to take the advice of others, but if it doesn’t meet what you want in life, ignore it. Others will tell you what they want you to do, or how they want you to be, but you must make the final decision.
Next, is the moral of acting and always getting back up. Santiago was told to always take action, as it is the only way to learn, but if you fall, you must get back up and keep going. If you are doing nothing, you are not making progress to fulfilling your personal legend or to pursue your dreams, and if you fail and decide that you give up, you will certainly not succeed. Also, when you are trying and putting in your best effort, do not be afraid to fail. Santiago would not have found the treasure if he had not embarked on the journey to the pyramids and learned that his treasure was under the sycamore tree. However, whether or not Santiago found the treasure was not the important part. What was important, was that when he decided to head out on the journey, he put all of his heart and all of his might into it.
Coelho explains that taking action, and getting back up and trying again is essential to completing your personal legend and pursuing your dreams, and the only true failure is not trying at all.
