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Reflections onThe Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Reflections onThe Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
October 18, 2024

A Journey Of Reflection With The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho

What are the secrets behind the success of this masterpiece?

The book reached a tremendous popularity thanks to some logical considerations.

To begin with, the novel addresses some basic questions that occupy the reflection of every person such as the core of the human beings’ existence, their destiny, their ambitions, and their major worries. Second, Irrespective of time and place, the basic questions raised by the novel remain dynamic and vivacious and provide the work with some everlasting longevity. Third, The alchemist can be read by people from different ages, levels of education, cultures, and knowledge. The reader quickly gets immersed in the details of the work and finds oneself invited to build one’s own interpretation depending on one’s convictions and insights. Fourth, the work implicitly spreads positivity and highlights the values of struggling, persistence, faith, and hope. Everyone has to follow and cherish the journey to the fulfillment of their goals and live it out. It is certainly painful, but full of promise, and the reward is plentiful.

VARIETY OF CHARACTERS

In fact, the novel is rich in characters that differ in psychology, way of thinking, way of living, upbringing environment, worries, beliefs, and ambitions, but there is some complementarity between them since all these different elements emanate from the human race and are applied to serve the same goal: the fulfillment of the journey of the boy by fulfilling their own journeys.

Indeed, each character requires a deep analysis to understand how it moves and the wisdom from their intervention in the journey of the boy.

a. The boy: Stands as the main character of the whole work, the pivot on which other characters evolve. Indeed, this character interacts with many characters and invites them to get involved in its own personal legend journey and provokes them to reveal their pure human repertoire. The boy exists inside everyone and induces us to question ourselves and rethink many personal conceptions in order to face our fears and weaknesses and fulfill our ambitions. During the whole journey, it seems that the writer keeps using the word “boy” instead of repeatedly using his name to refer to the dynamic quality of the human ambitions that should be kept lively and moving. The boy grows as far as he goes further on his journey and experiences failure and accumulates discoveries and gains.

b. The gypsy: She is the woman who plays a decisive role at the beginning of the journey of the boy. She is the stimulus that induces serious thought and action. Maybe her recurrent moving from place to place makes her able to acquire clairvoyance and understand human psychology and its worries and interpret dreams.

c. The king: From his first meeting with the boy, the king stays present and heavily active in the boy’s mind. He provides him with the inspiration and wisdom he needs during his journey, and helps him recover his faith and self-confidence whenever his stamina weakens.

d. The merchant: The character that keeps its dream alive without trying to live out its journey fulfillment. The thought of going to Mecca keeps this character alive and gives its life a taste and meaning. It avoids following other ambitions because it fears the change that might threaten its way of living and places it away from its comfort zone. However, the merchant does stay responsive to the ideas of the boy and runs the risk of expanding his business.

e. The Englishman: A character that is leading a journey towards knowledge and truth. This man looks forward to diving into the secrets of alchemy and spent many years in laboratories and libraries. This character manifests some strong thirst for knowledge and turns its search journey from theory into practice and struggles hard to discover the right path towards its goal.

f. The camel driver: A strong character that teaches the boy how to live his present and concentrate on the moment through its details. His eventful past inculcated in his soul some solid faith that shaped his convictions and conception of life.

g. Fatima: The call that the boy receives from the desert, the real soulmate he finds during his journey and saves him from confusion and doubt. She is the typical output of the desert. Despite the severe environment, she stands for pure love and manifests its overwhelming power. She accepts her fate and encourages the boy to continue his journey to its final destination.

h. The alchemist: The strongest character in the novel. The alchemist possesses knowledge, experience, and vision that let him build some distinguished art of living. This character simultaneously presents a goal of two journeys: the journey of the boy in search of his hidden treasure and the journey of everyone striving for the fulfillment of their potential.

PIECES OF WISDOM DRAWN FROM THE NOVEL

1. The quest for one’s journey: the reason for being

The natural biological instinct of following one’s journey should evolve to a destiny by getting brave, rebellious, and self-confident. It, undoubtedly, will face opposition from within (fear, doubt, cowardice) as well as the outside (family, the ordinary local way of living, the common conceptions and certainties, etc).
Everyone was born for a mission to accomplish and therefore invited to discover their assets and acquire others and find the right fight. Everyone has a huge potential to exploit, a faith to listen to, and a mind to use. No need to falter or despise oneself or get discouraged by doubts or lack of self-confidence. We weren’t born to follow the same path and get adjusted to the same way of living, everyone has to seek out their path, and all paths lead to human harmony and expansion.

2. Change comes from within:

Change occurs inside human beings’ repertoire, it is a faith that induces one to alter one’s conceptions and visions and leads to action and change. Change is to be created not expected, it looks like a volcano that erupts and surprises the outside world by its tremendous presence and power.

3. The universe is in permanent motion:

There is some harmony between all details in the universe. Each small detail exists for a purpose and implicitly serves the other details. The whole universe is in permanent motion and every human living is involved in and can’t go against the tide, no room for inertia or stagnation. Therefore, everyone is invited to lead their own journey to discover the self, give their lives a meaning, dive into the secrets of life, avoid killing the love of things they cherish, escape monotony, and hold their heads high . Swimming against the tide appears to be a kind of self-elimination and self-burial.

4. Never get fed up or hopeless

The purpose of the long search ends in small details until the last moment. Never get impatient or hopeless; the core of the whole journey lies ahead in small things and self-motivation and endurance are crucial for the continuity of the journey.

5. Knowledge

The treasures of knowledge are limitless and priceless. The further you go on the journey of searching for knowledge, the more attracted you become to its magic. The search of knowledge embodies all kinds of dedication since it shapes the way of thinking, turns life into an art of living, offers the courage to face fears and weaknesses, understand the secrets of nature and establish a friendly relationship with its elements.

6. The invisible world

Although science can’t dive into the secrets of the invisible world and approach its rules by observation, this world remains effective and present and invites us to discover its mysterious elements.

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