Levi McKinney
81297381
Mr. Ellery
English 1302.120
February 3, 2016
Personal Legend from The Alchemist
Have you ever heard of a personal legend? Well it’s what you’ve always wanted to be. What many people don’t understand is that their personal legend is what they wished to become when they were young, but never accomplished their dreams to become it or they were told somewhere along the way it was a stupid thing to strive for, it would not make enough money, or they just needed to grow up and move on. In Paul Coelho’s, The Alchemist, Melchizedek defines the term personal legend, “It’s everything you have always wanted to accomplish” (Coelho 22). The reoccurring theme made by Coelho in The Alchemist, is that your dreams lie where your heart does.
Coelho tells the story of a young adventurous Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who has an unusually weird dream about pyramids while sleeping under a large sycamore tree that grows from the ruins of a church. In his dream Santiago envisions a child who informs him that he will find treasure, but only if he travels to the Egyptian Pyramids. On his journey he meets an elder woman who’s a gypsy, she tells Santiago he must do as the prophecy says and head off on his journey. In one town Santiago meets the important character Melchizedek, a strong figure in the Old Testament, who urges the boy to follow his personal legend. Melchizedek argues that if Santiago gives him one tenth of his sheep before he sets to figure out his own personal legend he will tell him how to find his treasure. In the passage where it says “It (fate) describes people’s inability to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world’s greatest lie” (Coelho 20). Melchizedek is suggesting that there’s a certain point in our lives that gets controlled by fate and us believing in it is the lie. Throughout the novel Melchizedek shows his belief that there is no such thing as fate. You control what you...