Cultural Assimilation as a Survival Technique in Paulo Coelho’sThe Alchemist

Abstract

This research work explores the process of cultural assimilation employed by the protagonist, Santiago in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. The main objective of this study is to explore how Santiago has become able to survive in the foreign lands by exercising his cultural assimilation techniques. It inquires about how Santiago’s assimilation techniques work in the strange cultures in the strange places to make his desire of exploring the world as a traveler easier. Santiago’s process of cultural assimilation is analyzed with reference to Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of hybridity in the context of global culture, Milton Gordon’s sevenfold subprocesses of assimilation and Arjun Appadurai’s five dimensions of global cultural flows. It aims to unravel the techniques for a person to adjust successfully into the newer societies or cultures in the present era of globalization with reference to Santiago’s process of cultural assimilation. This study is a discovery of how Santiago deals with the difficult situations and obstacles he faces throughout his journey and how he succeeds to overcome them with applying his methods of assimilation in the unfamiliar cultural societies. It further explores how Paulo Coelho has portrayed the vivid picture of cultural assimilation in his book, The Alchemist. Keywords: assimilation, cultural flows, ethnoscapes, globalization, hybridity, manipulation,