https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist By Paulo Choelo en-us 2017-11-29 17:17:14 UTC 2025-10-25 23:48:50 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Balance.png blcampbell19 https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist/wish/211515574 Before the publication of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (b. 1947) worked as a theater director, playwright, and songwriter for some
of Brazil’s most popular singers. In 1986, he walked the Road of Santiago, an ancient Spanish pilgrimage, and this experience inspired
The Pilgrimage, his first novel, and The Alchemist, whose protagonist takes his name from the road. When The Alchemist was published in 1988, it was an instant international bestseller, and reached the #1 slot on bestseller lists in 29 countries. Paulo Coelho became one of the most widely read contemporary authors.

]]> 2017-11-29 17:19:39 UTC https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist/wish/211515574 blcampbell19 https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist/wish/211516908 These do not have a specific chapter, but you can answer them as you read through the book. We can go at any pace you would like through this book... 

1. The novel begins with the boy deciding to spend the night with his flock in an abandoned church. The church has no roof
and an enormous sycamore tree has grown up where the sacristy once stood. Why is it important that Santiago dreams of
a child who tells him of his treasure in this particular setting? 
2. What tests and setbacks does the boy experience on his journey? Why is it important that he faces and overcomes these
challenges? How would the novel be different if his quest was easier? 
3. What chain of events leads the boy to work at the crystal shop? What does he learn there? Why is he able to change and
improve the shop, which has remained the same for many years? How is he different from the shop’s owner?

4. When Santiago begins his trek across the desert, he meets an Englishman who is a student of alchemy. In many ways they
are alike: both are pursuing their “Personal Legends,” both have encountered the ideas of alchemy. How is their approach
to life and learning different? Why does the alchemist choose the boy as his pupil over the Englishman?

5. The Englishman tells Santiago that he would like to write “a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence.
It’s with those words that the universal language is written.” The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term “synchronicity”
to describe such moments of meaningful coincidence. When does Santiago experience this kind of
synchronicity? What do these experiences reveal? 
6. The alchemist says that “people become fascinated by pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the language of the
world.” What is this language of the world, or “universal language” as it is called elsewhere in the novel? How is it different
than ordinary language? Is it spoken or expressed in some other way? Why would a fascination with words and pictures
make people forget it? 
7. The boy is repeatedly encouraged to read the signs and omens to learn what he should do. What is an omen? How are
omens related to “the universal language” and to finding one’s “Personal Legend”? What are some of the omens that appear
to the boy in the novel? Have you ever experienced something that seemed like an omen?

8. How does Santiago feel when he meets Fatima? How does he know this is love? What does she teach him about love?

9. Early in the novel, the King tells the boy that his book says what most other books say: “It describes people’s inability
to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world’s greatest lie. . . that at a
certain point, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate” (p. 18). And yet throughout
The Alchemist, the concept of Maktub—the idea that our destiny is already written—is endorsed by many characters.
What is the difference between being controlled by fate and discovering one’s “Personal Legend” or destiny?

10. How do you interpret the novel’s ending? Why is it significant that Santiago’s treasure is buried not at the Pyramids but
back in Spain at the abandoned church where his journey began? What is the meaning of the fact that Santiago learns this
from a man who also had a dream but refused to follow it? 
11. The Alchemist is about a shepherd boy who journeys by caravan across the desert, has many magical experiences, and
meets many extraordinary characters. How were you able to relate to the story even though the world it describes is so different from life in contemporary America? What aspects of the story seem most relevant to you? Has reading the novel changed the way you view your own life? 
12. What time period do you think The Alchemist takes place in? Are there any clues in the novel? Why do you suppose Coelho hasn’t clearly indicated when the events described in the story take place? Why do you think Santiago is simply called
“the boy” throughout the novel? ]]> 2017-11-29 17:21:59 UTC https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist/wish/211516908 blcampbell19 https://padlet.com/blcampbell19/TheAlchemist/wish/211524159 1. What is the significance of Santiago becoming a shepherd rather than a priest, as his parents had hoped? Why has he
made this choice? What does being a shepherd allow him to do? 
2. King Mechizedek tells the boy that when we are children, “everything is clear and everything is possible,” but as time passes mysterious forces convince us to abandon our dreams (p. 21). Do you think this is true? What are the “mysterious forces” that threaten to hold us back as we grow older? 
3. The King also tells the boy that when you really desire something “all the universe conspires to help you find it.” 
And he explains the principle of “favorability,” or beginner’s luck. From whom does Santiago receive help on his journey?
Have you ever benefited from beginner’s luck? 
4. After he has been robbed of all his money in Tangier, how does Santiago choose to regard his situation? Did this surprise
you? What allows him to understand his loss in this way? 
5. When Santiago meets the alchemist, he wants to give up his journey to find his treasure and remain at the pyramids. He
has become a respected counselor at the oasis, he has fallen deeply in love with Fatima, and he wants nothing more than
to stay where he is. How does the alchemist convince him to go on? 
6. The alchemist says that for the boy to find his treasure he must listen to his heart. Why does the alchemist feel that the
heart is more important, or more trustworthy, than the mind? How and why is the heart able to understand things the
mind can’t grasp? 
7. When Santiago and the alchemist are captured by one of the warring tribes, Santiago must turn himself into the wind
to save his life. He asks the desert, the wind, and the sun to help him, but none know how to turn a man into the wind.
Where does the boy find the answer? What is the larger significance of this answer? 
8. If you could ask Paulo Coelho one question, what would it be? How do you think he would answer?

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