The Alchemist

In the novel, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho the main character, Santiago had to overcome many obstacles. There are four obstacles that Santiago had to overcome while trying to find his treasure and complete his personal legend. The first obstacle is being “told from childhood onward that every dream is impossible” (Coelho 2). Santiago’s parents want him to be a priest, but he wants to travel the world and be a shepherd. He even goes to school to be a priest. “One afternoon, on a visit to his family, he had summoned up the courage to tell his father that he didn’t want to become a priest. That he wanted to travel” (Coelho 12). As a result of his courage, his father gives him his blessing, and Santiago lives his dream of being a shepherd. “If we have enough courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love” (Coelho 2). Santiago is afraid of hurting those around him. He isn’t afraid of love itself, but of hurting those he loves by doing what he wants. When Santiago has the dream about the treasure, he is very hesitant to abandon his sheep. After thinking about it, Santiago realizes that he has to follow his dream, so he sells his sheep and follows his dream of the treasure. “Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path” (Coelho 2). Once he arrives in Tangier, Santiago is robbed and gives up on his dream. Because he is so afraid that something worse than being robbed will happen to him, he decides to be a shepherd again. He begins working for a crystal merchant to save enough money to return home to Spain and buy more sheep. Santiago overcomes this obstacle after the merchant and the stones Urim and Thummin, which were given to him by the old king, give him hope and renew his will to find his treasure. “Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives” (Coelho 4). Not knowing what to