Critical Evaluation

Written in less than one month in 1987, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist was inspired by the short tale “The Ruined Man Who Became Rich Again Through a Dream” from the classic Arabic short-story cycle The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, also known as The Thousand and One Nights (fifteenth century). This tale has been adapted by many authors because of the powerful message it delivers about discovering that one’s treasure does not need to be pursued; it can be found at home.

For The Alchemist, Coelho adapts four principles from the tale: the personal quest, the awareness of omens, the soul of the world, and the idea of listening to one’s heart as a guide. The novel also mentions The Thousand and One Nights when Santiago and the Englishman see many wells, colored tents, and date trees upon approaching the oasis. The Englishman acknowledges that the view looks like a scene from the classic story.

In this semiautobiographical work, Coelho’s own experiences are mimicked in Santiago’s journey to find his Personal Legend. At the age of sixteen, Santiago leaves the monastery against his father’s wishes, in favor of seeking his true dream of traveling. Like Santiago, Coelho had left his Jesuit schooling and Roman Catholicism in favor of his own journey. When his parents realized that writing was his dream, they sent him to a psychiatric hospital, where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy.

Coelho followed this period of hospitalization with stints as a hippie, a songwriter, and a dabbler in black magic. He also spent time in jail, where he was tortured by the Brazilian government for participating in subversive activities. At this point in his life, Coelho took a pilgrimage on the Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where the revelations that followed brought him back to the Catholic religion and fostered an interest in simplicity. He surmised that people find their spirituality through self-fulfillment rather than through stifled individual freedom. Coelho made a full circle in his journey.

Similarly, Santiago finds his treasure in the physical place where he began his journey: the dilapidated church in Andalusia, Spain. It is no coincidence that both Coelho and Santiago have epic journeys that begin in Spain and that the main character’s name, Santiago, mimics the pilgrim’s trail that Coelho traveled. When Coelho began this novel, the only aspect he was certain of was that Santiago, like himself, would end in the place he started.

Coelho’s rebellion ultimately helped him to identify his path in life and to develop the survival skills necessary to overcome conflict. Santiago also develops these strengths along his own journey. On three separate occasions, all of his money is stolen. The first time he weeps from despair, then he chooses to have faith. The second time, he questions the alchemist’s judgment in handing over his earnings; again, he still has faith. Finally, the war refugees steal his money and beat him severely. Through this experience, he understands how he can achieve his personal goal. Ultimately, Santiago prevails.

From his personal experiences, Coelho develops a number of thematic topics for The Alchemist. The fable delivers the moral lesson about realizing your dreams and listening to your heart. Santiago dreams of traveling instead of living in a monastery, and he follows his heart by leaving. When pursuing his dream, he is warned by the alchemist that fear should not be an option because paralysis inhibits life’s progress. Eventually, Santiago also discovers that when he listened, his heart had directed him toward his Personal Legend. Coelho is making a statement against conformity and rigidity.

Coelho also uses his voice to examine the debate of fate versus free will. For example, King Melchizedek retells the story of appearing before a miner who had been ready to abandon his Personal Legend. The old king then transformed himself into a stone to attract the miner’s attention and aid him in finding the precious stone he was seeking. The king is a manifestation of God, as is the gypsy (Roma) who identifies Santiago’s dream without needing to be told. Fate is controlling Santiago’s destiny.

Stylistically, Coelho uses simplistic language, making his text accessible to the reader. He avoids complex metaphor and idioms, yet employs symbolism that alludes to spiritual guidance. The hawk leads Santiago to have a vision that enables him to save the oasis from attack, and a scarab beetle indicates the spot where Santiago will weep and then dig for treasure before the pyramids.

The Alchemist references the book of Exodus in the Old Testament in the mention of the two stones, Urim and Thummim, which were said to be divination tools held within the breastplate worn by the high priest. Melchizedek, who gives Santiago the stones, opens his cape and reveals a gold breastplate covered with precious stones, which ultimately convinces Santiago that he is a king. He gives Santiago the stones and tells him they will help him read omens when he is indecisive. In the Old Testament, Melchizedek is the king of Salem.

The Alchemist is not only a fable but also a work of Magical Realism, evoking a realistic setting as well as magical and mysterious events. The work connects to socially relevant topics and employs mythical and fablelike happenings. The characters are often endowed with supernatural abilities, such as when Santiago converses with the natural elements when trying to turn himself into the wind.

Over time, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, and Coelho is now one of the most widely read of Latin American authors. He has changed the lives of many readers by encouraging them to rediscover themselves through personal journeys. The novel has inspired a symphony and theatrical adaptations, and the rights to the novel were purchased in 2008 by American film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Further Reading

The book-length fable is a difficult form to master, for it must simultaneously exhibit a naive simplicity that speaks to children and be grounded in a universal wisdom that appeals to adults. The problem is that it is difficult to sustain naive simplicity over the long haul without becoming boring, and it is a real challenge to present universal wisdom in such a simple form without being ultimately obvious and thus somehow banal. Antoine de Saint Exupery’s classic fable LITTLE PRINCE manages that balancing act quite magically. THE ALCHEMIST by Paulo Coelho, one of Brazil’s best-selling authors, achieves the magic only unevenly.

The characters and the plot are classically familiar—a poor shepherd boy sets off to seek his fortune, meeting many wondrous characters along the way, only to discover—what else?— that the search for the treasure is the treasure itself and that one need search no farther than one’s own heart. Two basic themes dominate the story—the ability to recognize, and the willingness to follow, signs and omens and the courage to follow one’s dream.

In additional to old gypsy women, mysterious merchants, and noble kings, the characters the young Santiago meets along the way include an Englishman who has been searching for the one true language of the universe (which is, of course, the language of love), a beautiful maiden named Fatima, and, an alchemist who has discovered the true secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. Familiar magical injunctions from various romances and religious books are threaded through the fable—lose the self to find the self, listen to your heart, become one with the Soul of the World, follow your dream—but the advice so often overwhelms the story that one’s eyes tend to glaze over with the abstractness of it all.