Preview

Santiago Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
283 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Santiago Character Analysis
Santiago, a shepherd boy from a small Andalusian town, is the protagonist of The Alchemist. He is determined, headstrong, and curious to learn all he can about the world. As a result, he resisted his parent’s desires that he become a priest and chose instead to work as a shepherd so that he would have the opportunity to travel throughout the country. Despite his natural adventurousness, Santiago remains conservative and self-satisfied in many ways until he dreams of uncovering a treasure hidden near the pyramids in Egypt. Santiago hesitates to pursue his dream until he meets Melchizedek, a mysterious old man who claims to be the king of Salem. After Melchizedek reveals to him the magical powers of nature, Santiago becomes a willing spiritual seeker and sets off to fulfill his Personal Legend, the innate dream each person has of accomplishing their greatest desire.
As the story progresses and Santiago comes closer to the treasure, he becomes more focused on his growing understanding of the mystical force that imbues everything, called the Soul of the World. The time he spends crossing the desert on his way to the pyramids teaches him to pay attention to the world around him and to see all of creation in his surroundings, even in a single grain of sand.
The knowledge he gains from the desert allows him to recognize nature as a single, unified whole. His greatest spiritual advancement, however, comes after he meets the alchemist, who helps him to understand himself and to read the omens in his environment. Santiago ultimately learns to communicate with the wind and the sun and the Hand That Wrote All, a force evidently synonymous with God or Allah.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Santiago In The Alchemist

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the fantasy fiction adventure novel, The Alchemist, written by Paul Coelho, an epic story is told about an individual named Santiago that follows his dreams and defies all odds to find a treasure that might not even exist. He is accompanied by an ally which is also an alchemist. Throughout the story, a main part was the symbolization of Santiago’s heart. His heart symbolizes the good in the world and the most pure way to get what you want.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is with such a unique, magical realism story that Gabriel García Márquez is able subtly convey themes involving the foils of mankind to his audience. His story invites the reader to search for those deeper aspects within the text and try applying them to their own lives. Whether they discover that they should strive to be more compassionate, avoid being stereotypically superficial individuals, or do not read anything into the writing, the audience will undoubtedly enjoy Márquez’s superb skills as one of the best storytellers of the twentieth…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The story is non-chronological and is told out of order, mimicking the way that memories are often not remembered sequentially. In addition, the story is told like clockwork, told repetitively through memories that essentially keep Santiago alive twenty-seven years after his death. Although most of the chapters end on an exclamation similar to “They’ve killed Santiago Nasar!” the story is reconstructed again, with a new memory or voice telling the story, adding more pieces to solve the puzzle of Santiago Nasar’s murder (García Márquez 71). Santiago’s murder is retold in each chapter, but Santiago becomes ‘resurrected’ in the next where his last moments are replayed, up until the last chapter of the novel. The last sentence of the novel ends with the line “He went into his house through the back door that had been open since six and fell on his face in the kitchen”, again ending Santiago’s life, but this time ending the loop of Santiago’s death and his following resurrection (García Márquez 120). The novel ends with no conclusion, paralleling the fact that Santiago’s murder has no conclusion or resolution. Santiago dies with his innocence still in question, but the circumstances of his death causes Santiago to still be remembered and, therefore, to still be…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Santiago and his Treasure Changed Me The alchemist changed my view of the world as it gave valuable knowledge about life and human experience, it showed you to pursue your heart and your dreams no matter how hard the path ahead looks. It taught me to be determined in life, no matter what. The book shows that the universe is all interconnected and that the universe is conspiring to help us achieve our goals as well. Throughout the book, we see how it explains all of these concepts through the plot and the protagonist.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the fable, Santiago, a Spanish shepherd boy following his Personal Legend, is soon taught the ways of the world, in that he gains knowledge of the fact that everything, from the tiniest shrub to the mightiest king, are equal and binded together when it comes to the role they play in each others quest for fulfilment. He realizes that all things have a Personal Legend just as he does, and in order for perfection and universal harmony to occur, every subject of nature must reach its full potential by achieving…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The motif of reading is that santiago is reading the world.The alchemist and he believe that the world around them is written words.Santiago even says that “Well, usually I learn more from my sheep than from books,” (5). Santiago also believes than you can learn more from the world than from a book. santiago believes that the world has a language like when he said “You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love… the love that speaks the Language of the World.” (126)…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A public spectacle occurs when the performance of the strange autopsy for Santiago Nasar is in the hands of the village priest, who is carless about Santiago’s body, in the novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. In the story Santiago is killed by the Vicario brothers, Pedro and Pablo. Before Santiago was murdered he was being accused of sleeping with Angela, and taking her virginity. This created a lot of hell and embarrassment for Santiago throughout the town, and caused people to have zero respect for him.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This applied to Santiago decided to go and follow his dream and find his treasure and figure out his personal legend.…

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    | This dialogue is said at the climax of the book, when Santiago is faced with the challenge of turning himself into the wind. This is a huge conflict in the book. In order for him so save his and the alchemist’s lives he will need to transform into wind and produce a wind so strong it will blow down the whole camp. This is also teaching Santiago a very important lesson. He cannot back away from something just because he is scared of failing. If he ever gets to the pyramids and the treasure is not exactly where he thinks it is, he will have to be able to search for some sort of sign from the soul of the universe and keep searching for it.(Word Count: 126)…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    alchemisst project

    • 965 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the first place, Santiago is faced by having to decide between completing his Personal Legend to travel all the way to Egypt to find a treasure at the pyramids and settling along the way for the treasures he has already earned. If he completes his Personal Legend, he will have succeeded in what he’s been yearning to find for so long. But, if he settles for the length he’s gotten to so far, he will later regret not completing his journey. As the alchemist said in the novel, “You’ll spend the rest of your days knowing that you didn’t pursue your Personal Legend and that now it’s too late.” It’s easy to say follow your dreams, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.…

    • 965 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ester Lucero

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One of the most fascinating aspects of any story is the formation of it’scharacters. The way the author chooses to describe them, give them personalities, is how the reader will see their lives. A character’s psyche and the way he thinks about events around him change the way a reader perceives the story. Authors have an amazing chance to shape and bend a story to fit what they want it to be through the characterization of the people they write about. If an author is incapable of making characters believable and understandable, the story won’t survive. In Isabel Allende’s “Ester Lucero”, Angel is described in a way that makes the reader understand his impulses and desires, even if they areof a completely foreign nature to the reader. Allende is an extremely skilled writer that used her ability to make a character believable to her advantage for this story.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you will find nothing on your return” CITATION Pau1 \l 1033 (Coelho, The Alchemist). Through out the novel Santiago works on becoming pure to reach his personal legend. The spiritual unity that is represented by the Soul of the World binds together all of natures from humans to the most simplest thing desert sand. This idea is can be compared to two things the alchemist purifying the metal into gold and Santiago purifying himself into someone who is able in accomplishing his personal legend. In the novel the soul of the world created an ultimate desire for everyone whether it’s Santiago or a piece of metal. For anything or anyone to accomplish their personal legend they must become part of the Soul of the World which will help you purify yourself and the continuous purifying will lead to perfecting. The parallel examples of humans, metal and all other thing sharing a common goal demonstrates that every element in nature are uniquely different form of a single…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Alchemist Analysis

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages

    His first encounter with the Alchemist shows him that he has been correct to follow the path of his Personal Legend. Although the information taught to him over his travels is confusing to Santiago, he believes it, and changes his thinking understand more of the world. With his understanding of the universal language, of the signs and signals, Santiago evades death. The Alchemist begins meeting with Santiago, teaching him more about the Soul of the World, saying, “The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Alchemist

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Finally, the mentors that Santiago met throughout the book were also very crucial to him reaching his…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Alchemist

    • 2063 Words
    • 9 Pages

    This scene provides an idea of the problem (first obstacle) that Santiago will have to overcome through the book. The scene suggest what Santiago have to do in order to find that treasure – not every step, or every aspect of the procedures but a hit of what he should go –Then with this information, the reader realize that Santiago must cross the desert to reach the pyramids, that he must acquire some money to arrive to Egypt. A foreshadowing event not only tells the reader what a character might do to accomplish ‘’that’’, but with what he might struggle and what the character mush overcome.…

    • 2063 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays