Julia’s answer to “Whyy did the writer named the book as "The Alchemist" when the protagonist of the novel is santigo?…” > Likes and Comments

Thanks for th reply but I am asking that Why the treasure was not in the pyramids? Why can't the writer end the novel at the pyramids? why did he add the soldiers dream? Did it mean something else about destiny?

I think it means that sometimes our destiny is not what, or where, we think it will be. The point is just to follow your dreams. The soldier did not realize that if he followed his dream, he would find a treasure. Santiago didn't even know that he would *find* the treasure at the beginning of the book... he just thought it was a weird dream (this is meant to parallel the soldier believing that his dream was meaningless as well), but after he was told that his dream was significant, it set him on the course to fulfill it.
So why didn't it end at the pyramids? I guess that Santiago had to dream that the treasure was somewhere unattainable... it couldn't just be somewhere easy to find (which it actually was). If it was at the Pyramids, yes, his Personal Legend would have still been fulfilled, but the point is that there are steps to a Personal Legend, so in fact, Santiago's dream did not represent the Legend itself but just a significant step along the way. Think of it sort of like landing your dream job and you think that you have achieved everything you hoped for, but then you get an opportunity to get transferred somewhere even better, and you realize that getting the first job was just a step to greater things.