Summary on the Novel 'the Alchemist'
The Alchemist- responding to the novel 1- The novel is based on 19th-20th century, Santiago, the shepherd lives out in the fields with his sheep. He goes from Andalusia, Spain to Tangier, from Tangier he travels to the Saharan oasis Al-Fayoum. The impact of the time setting in this novel is the fact that religion is very strong amongst the people. We as readers come across this time setting and setting (location) itself has an impact on the behavior of the characters we come across as we come across a fairly conservative society. 2- The Culture context of the text: This novel has some connections with the author Paulo Coelho; in this novel he has explored the idea of spirituality and one’s personal legend, goal, spiritual awakening/journey, inspiration, motivation and sociality. Coelho in the past has lived his life as a hippy in the 1960’s and in the 70’s he was involved in the drug culture, soon he went on to travel to Spain and North Africa where he went on a spiritual awakening. While he lived as a hippy he began to be very spiritual as he also travelled, Santiago (protagonist) is a traveler while a shepherd at the same time who goes on to travel from Spain to North Africa and whilst travelling he encounters a spiritual journey. 3- The genre of this text is somewhat of a drama theme, while a great deal of adventure is also an aspect of the novel. Spirituality is also a major aspect in this text. The atmosphere which is created in this text is that of a spiritual and adventurous atmosphere. Throughout the text people are getting to know one another and are sharing their personal legends, goals and experiences. 4- Santiago goes on a physical journey from Andalusia to the Middle East (North Africa) where he is constantly travelling and working to go to the pyramids in Egypt, Santiago wants to go to Egypt as he has had a dream of a child telling him to go to the pyramids (Egypt) because he will find a treasure there (page 15). His spiritual