The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho

The Soul of The World’s Home There comes a time in every individual’s life when they must choose to pursue their dream or “personal destiny” or ignore it until it fades away. In the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, the progantinst, Santiago, adopts the life of a shepherd so he has the opportunity to travel and leave his small home in Andalusia. Complacent with his way of life, Santiago unintentionally meets an old king who says Santiago must fulfill his personal destiny. Learning to speak the language of the world, Santiago follows the omens that continually surround him only to discover that the physical treasure remained back home. Despite his endless hardship throughout the journey, Santiago felt continuous comfort because of the sense of home that the soul of the world provided him with.
Once Santiago arrives in the desert in pursuit of his personal legend, he realizes that all humans, animals, and objects speak one universal language. He learns to
Through this communication, Santiago reaches all parts of the earth like the wind and enters the soul of the world and finds a home in every different place he goes.
Santiago also discovers that a person may represent home. “He recognized that he was feeling something he had never experienced before: the desire to live in one place forever… And he knew that shepherds, like seamen and like travelling salesmen, always found a town where there was someone who could make them forget the joys of carefree wandering” (Coelho 8-9). When he is away from his beloved, Fatima, he communicates with her through the wind despite the seemingly countless miles between them. “The wind began to blow again… it brought the scent of a perfume he knew very well, and the touch of a kiss - a kiss that came from far away, slowly, slowly, until it rested on his lips” (Coelho 171). Because Santiago could contact Fatima at any time, he felt at ease as if he were with her back home in the