Santiago chooses his Legend and opposes what most people have done; ignore their aspirations. His choice to deny the norm, rebuke his education, disappoint his family, and trust fate proves that he is born to pursue his Personal Legend, thus, initiating the plot. Notably, Santiago is born with an instinctual love for travel and he is naturally curious and passionate in his situations. Santiago’s parents vie for their son to be an educated priest so he can be a source of pride in their village but “ever since he had been a child, he wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man’s sins”(Coelho 8). Family honour is important to Santiago’s parents yet he still finds knowledge of the world more essential than the struggle
The adventurous dreamer dares to go after his personal legend and has and unforgettable quest that takes him from Spain all the way to the Egyptian deserts. He showed his desire to make his dream come true overcoming many obstacles. Santiago wanted to see the world learn about it and have adventures but his parents expected him to become a priest. “One afternoon, on a visit to his family, he had summoned up the courage to tell his father that he didn’t want to become a priest that he wanted to travel” (Coelho 8). After he told his dad he wanted to become a shepherd to be able to travel his dad gave him some gold coins.
How Santiago Changes throughout The Alchemist In the book The Alchemist, Santiago, the main character, changes from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. In the beginning of the book Santiago is just a shepherd boy who is looking for a girl but when he learns of his personal legend everything changes. From the beginning of his journey, Santiago has been somewhat practicing alchemy, he just didn’t realize it. While going against what his parents wanted him to do, they still supported him by giving him money. When Santiago has his dream, he pursues it by finding a women who interpreted dreams.
Su-Jen’s father, Hing-Wun, sacrifices everything for his family, and he struggles at the same time; these struggles continue in his whole life. Hing-Wun works so hard in the Dragon café to make money for his family, and he does not spend a single penny on himself; but his great efforts do not acquire a better future for himself. Even though he keeps working like a horse in his seventies for his family, his wife still complains about him and does not appreciate his attitudes towards life. Hing-Wun is such a kind man who always considers about his wife and he tells Su-Jen to think of and understand her mother’s situation. Therefore, Hing-Wun’s struggle against his hard work for his family is in vain.
In Dagoberto Gilb’s story “Romero’s Shirt,” Romero’s plaid Pendleton shirt seems like an insignificant object at first, but gains symbolic significance as the story progresses. Juan Romero, a husband and father, was born and raised in Mexico in a family that had close to nothing. After moving to El Paso from Mexico he realized that there wasn’t much available to his family as a child and wanted different for the family he made with his wife. He cherished his plaid Pendleton shirt because to him it was more than a shirt, it was something he could wear anywhere and everywhere and it symbolized all the hard work he had done to make sure his family had a life that they deserved. Romero was an extremely hard worker and did whatever he could to provide for his family.
191) Anse justifies himself by saying that he did not have teeth for fifteen years and sacrificed a lot for his family. He claims that he gave the money that he saved for his teeth for the pack of mules; however, he ultimately stole from Cash and Jewel - money they saved on their own.
Don Chipote constantly daydreams of being able to provide a better life for himself and his family. “He dreamt that the cornfields, rather than ears of corn, yielded a harvest of glittering gold coins and he felt downright extraordinary because now he no longer needed to work.” (21) His desire to live a better life up until he met Pitacio was nothing but a dream. Pitacio also grew up poor in the same town as Don Chipote. From an early age Pitacio had a fear of working. Of poor yet drunk parents, the boy demonstrated a terrible fear of work from a very early age; for all times that Pitacio’s father sent him out to scare away the birds so they would not eat the crops, he had yet to get Pitacio to
There are people waiting for him so that he cannot get away. They do not want to go because they don’t want to be taken from their families, even though they understand they will get glory out of it. In traditional times, all boys had to go, but now because of evangelistic Christians, things have changed and not all kids go. The families of the boys curse at the Scat Mulaj and throw stuff at them because they don’t want them to take their sons. This process in which they take the boys proves that the boy is important in their village and the Scat wants to invest time in them because they believe that they are crucial to the
In the book, Gary talks about how his television images motivates him to have a way out of Fresno and it kept him fighting to find away out of poverty. He fought for a place where he can plan his roots and be accepted for who is. Gary also had many family conflicts but the biggest one was with his step dad. Gary’s lack of education and being mistreated in school made him think that his future was going to be living in Fresno the rest of his life like his parents did. Gary wants to break away from poverty and keep the next generation out of working in the fields or factories.
Dally and Johnny help shape Ponyboy’s life. Dally and Johnny help Ponyboy realize that he must be willing to sacrifice some of his ideals to become a toughened gangster; they help him visualize what his life will most likely be. In The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, Ponyboy undergoes dramatic events that help shape his life. During the novel he loses the innocence he once had and experiences many traumatic situations.