Coelho's
relies on quite a number of literary devices to impart the story's themes
and messages to the reader. For instance, there are many Biblical allusions that reflect similar
situations that Santiago has to confront.
Coelho also usesand presents the
robber as something of a foil. A foil is defined as...
€¦[a] character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in
another character.
Although the robber appears only for a
brief moment of time, his attitudes and actions serve to provide Santiago with a faint
reflection of himselfa young man entrusted with dreams. The robber also shows the reader how
very different these two young men are in terms of how they interact with the world.
The alchemist hints at this when he says:
No
matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And
normally he doesn't know it.
This is certainly the case
when Santiago is attacked near the Pyramids. He believes he is supposed to
dig at a particular spot to find his treasure, and he must dig but not for
his treasure: it is here that one member of a group of robbers will tell Santiago something he
needs to hear (as the robber plays his central role). This part of
Santiago's journey is necessary in realizing his Personal Legend. After the men have beaten the
boy, Santiago finally tells them about his dream, and admits he is looking for
treasure.
The leader decides that Santiago has nothing more of any value
(and that he's is stupid), and decides to leave. But before they go, the
leader's words show us first that he is not following
his Personal Legendfor he has ignored his dreams.
Second, his words tell Santiago that the boy
will be rewarded because he
has followed his dreams:
Two years
ago, right here on this spot, I had a recurrent dream, too. I dreamed that I should travel to
the fields of Spain and look for a ruined church where shepherds and their sheep
slept.
The leader of the thieves continues to describe
what he saw in his dreamsincluding the tree: the very same place Santiago rested with his sheep
back home. The thief's dreams told him that at the roots of the tree, the thief would find
treasure.
But I'm not so stupid as to cross an entire
desert just because of a recurrent dream.
Here, then,
Coelho also uses irony. Irony is the difference between what one believes
will happen and what really happens. This is an example of situational
irony, when...
...accidental events occur that
seem oddly appropriate...
For this is certainly not what
the reader or Santiago expected. And Santiago is not the stupid
oneobviously the leader of the thieves is.
In
situational irony, both the character in the story and the reader realize
the importance of what has happened. Santiago knows immediately that he must return to his
homeland, to the grove with the church ruins. At the base of the sycamore tree, if he digs, he
will find treasure. And because Santiago has listened to the Language of
the World and has never stopped pursuing his Personal Legend, he comes home to find what the
universe contrived he would discover...what the universe
hoped he would find before he ever left Spain.
"If
he had not believed in the significance of recurring dreams," he would never have started
on his journey, would never have the people who taught and directed him; he would not have found
Fatima; and, he would not have found the treasure...or seen the
Pyramids.
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