Essay on The Alchemist

Submitted By bere030
Words: 1104
Pages: 5

Berenice Mejia
Jehanne Brown
English 70
Journal #1
Main Points: * Santiago is a Shepard who likes to his job because he enjoys traveling. * He meets a shopkeeper’s daughter which he can’t stop thinking of and is looking forward to see her again after waiting a whole year to deliver wool to his father again. * Santiago dreams a strange dream twice which he is curious about. * He decides to go see a Gypsy to try to figure out what his dream means. * After hearing his dream, the Gypsy tells him to go to the place where the dream takes him and she requests 10% of the treasure when he finds it. * He then meets a man, which ends up being a king, who tells him to follow the path that god has prepared for him and that was to go find the treasure and he as well requests one-tenth of his sheep because he helped him make his decision. * He meets an old man at a bar to which he offers to be his guide, which the old man agrees after he finds out he has enough money. The old man then runs off with all the money the boy had after he is distracted looking at a sword. * He then walks in to a shop where he meets a crystal merchant that offers him a job.

Summary:
Santiago is a Shepard who likes to his job because he enjoys traveling. With one of the stops he made to deliver wool he meets a shopkeeper’s daughter which he has a conversation with and couldn’t stop thinking of since. The thought of her even made him doublethink if he had made the right decision of traveling since she made him consider wanting to stay in one place forever. Santiago then has a weird dream which a week later he dreamt of again. He decides to go see a Gypsy to try to figure out what his dream meant. After hearing his dream, the Gypsy tells him to go to the place where the dream takes him and she requests 10% of the treasure, the dream tells him he is going to find, when he finds it. He then meets a man, which ends up being a king, who tells him to follow the path that god has prepared for him and that was to go find the treasure. He also requests one-tenth of his sheep if he decides to go. It’s only fair since he had helped him make the decision. Santiago decides to take the challenge since he had nothing to lose. He then meets an old man at a bar to which he offers him to be his guide to which the old man agrees after he finds out he has money. The old man then runs off with all the money the boy had after he is distracted looking at a sword. Even though Santiago becomes a little discourage he decides he is going to continue to find the treasure. He then walks into a shop where he meets a crystal merchant that offers him a job.

Personal Response: The reason I’m enjoying this story so far is because the situations Santiago goes through really do happen to people in the real world. When the old man he meets at the bar steels his money for example, shows how you can’t be humble and trust everybody. There’s thieves out there which all they look for is to steal from people regarding what the case might be. I also enjoyed the last section in part one where he is offered a job by the crystal merchant. It shows that as there are bad people out there, there is good that are willing to help out even if it’s a stranger. I relate to this because it feels like something my mom might do and it just reminds me so much of her. That is what makes it beautiful.
Evidence:
As I’ve mentioned in the previous text, I can relate to this story because in a lot of the situations it reminds me of my mom. “It was as if some mysterious energy bound his life to that of the sheep, with whom he had spent the past two years, leading them through the countryside in search of food and