Perseverance in The Alchemist Essay Example

In the beginning of The Alchemist during Melchizedek and Santiagos first meeting Melchizedek says to Santiago ‘whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.’ In this quote Melchizedek says that dreams are not silly or that selfish desires should be ignored. Instead of this they serve as the primary means by which people can get in touch with the mystical force that connects everything in the universe.

In The Alchemist perseverance leads to positive consequences a lot. This especially happens a lot to Santiago. For example when the crystal merchant said "Even if you cleaned my crystal for an entire year... even if you earned a good commission selling every piece, you would still have to borrow money to get to Egypt. There are thousands of kilometers of desert between here and there." Santiago still worked hard. He sold everything in the store and sold tea to people who would climb the mountain. He ended up getting enough money and made it to. Egypt. Another example of this is when Santiago first met the king of Salem and the king of Salem said to him "Give me one-tenth of your sheep, and I'll tell you how to find the hidden treasure." Even though he didn’t want to sell his sheep he had to if he wanted to find the treasure. Then he could buy his sheep back.

This happens again when Fatima says to Santiago "That's why I want you to continue toward your goal.” Of course he doesn’t want to leave her because she’s the love of his life. But he also wants to follow his dream. Whenever he finds the treasure he can make his way back to her. One more place when this happens is at the very end, when he’s looking for the treasure and the group of guys come up to him and beat him till he’s almost dead. And he thought of when the alchemist said "What good is money to you if you're going to die? It's not often that money can save someone's life.” Since he was about to die he had to tell them that there was a treasure. But telling them helped him realize where the treasure was.

In The Alchemist there are multiple places where perseverance leads to positive consequences. Therefore Santiago has a lot of positive outcomes in this story.