Summary: Prologue
The alchemist reads a book containing the story of Narcissus. According to
legend, Narcissus kneeled every day beside a lake to admire his reflection, until
one day he became so fascinated with his own beauty that he fell into the lake and
drowned. The goddess of the forest appeared at the lake and found the water
transformed into salty tears. She asked the lake why it cried for Narcissus,
assuming it had admired Narcissus’s beauty. The lake replies that it was enjoying
its own beauty reflected in Narcissus’s eyes.
Summary: Section One
The third-person narrator describes a shepherd named Santiago arriving with
his flock at an abandoned Church. Santiago decides to sleep there. A giant sycamore
tree grows in the spot where a sacristy once stood. While Santiago sleeps, he has a
disturbing dream (we do not learn exactly what the dream was). When he wakes, his
flock begins to stir, and Santiago talks to the sheep about a girl he met the year
prior. She is the daughter of a merchant who Santiago is visiting to sell some
wool.
When Santiago arrives, the merchant asks him to wait until afternoon to sell
him wool. While Santiago reads, he meets the merchant’s daughter and talks to her
about life in the village. She asks why he chooses to be a shepherd even though he
can read. Santiago avoids the question, preferring instead to talk about his
travels. Santiago finds the merchant’s daughter’s Moorish eyes and raven-colored
hair entrancing. He experiences for the first time a desire to stay in one place for
the rest of his life. When the merchant finally appears, he asks Santiago for the
wool of four sheep and tells him to return the next year.
The story jumps forward in time almost a year, to four days before Santiago’s
next visit to the village. He stays in the abandoned church and daydreams about the
merchant’s daughter. As he urges his sheep along, he admires their loyalty. Santiago
imagines he could kill his sheep one by one, and each one would be none the wiser
until he killed it. He feels troubled by his thought, and that night has the same
troubling dream he had the year before.
Santiago recalls the day he told his father he wanted to travel instead of
becoming a priest. His father told him that travelers see other lands, but do not
change as a result. They just end up being nostalgic for the past. His father said
the only people of their class who travel are shepherds. The next day, Santiago’s
father gave him three gold coins to purchase a flock of sheep. He encouraged
Santiago to travel, but said Santiago would learn that their own countryside is
best. As he recalls the scene, Santiago senses that his father also would have liked
to travel, but could not afford to while raising a family. Santiago wonders if his
sheep enjoy discovering new roads and sights each day, but decides they only care
about eating. He compares the flock’s single-mindedness to his own preoccupation
with the merchant’s daughter. Suddenly, Santiago remembers that an old woman in the
nearby village of Tarifa interprets dreams. He decides to visit her.
Analysis
The prologue of the Alchemist runs only a little more than one page, but it
gives the reader several clues about what to expect in the story. The alchemist says
the book containing the story of Narcissus belonged to someone in “the caravan,”
hinting that a journey may occur during the course of the tale. The alchemist also
expresses surprise that the author of the book extended the popular legend of
Narcissus past its traditional conclusion. The usual version of the legend ends as
Narcissus dies looking into a lake, illustrating the danger of vanity. In the
version Santiago reads, however, we learn that the lake felt upset that Narcissus
had drowned, because it enjoyed feeding its own vanity while looking into
Narcissus’s eyes. This idea, that vanity can serve a good cause despite its perils,
will become an important theme of the book. The Narcissus story also readies the
reader for the magical, mythic quality of The Alchemist. It
introduces us to a world where a lake can speak, goddesses roam the countryside, and
magic is a fact of life.
