MISTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY IN "THE ALCHEMIST"

Through this description of dreams, and the events that unfold in the narrative, Coelho's magical, fairy-tale style takes shape and comes to the fore. Melchizedek is himself a fantastical character, who knows a positively supernatural amount of things about Santiago's personal life, has magical stones to offer, and claims to be able to turn himself into different things. In this way, The Alchemist shows a certain amount of affinity with magical realism - a genre of literature wherein fantastic things happen but the characters react to them in psychologically realistic ways. This magical tone is one of the dominant stylistic characteristics of the novel.