Question #4:
Desire and fate play a huge role in these few pages. When Santiago feels the need to meet this interesting girl with raven hair and the Moorish eyes, he is clearly displaying desire. Also when Santiago wants to go to the Pyramids of Egypt and find the so called treasure, Desire is once again displayed. Desire takes over people and takes certain things away from us and in Santiagos case, his home and family. However when Santiago is put out all by himself into the real world, he is faced with many difficult desisions. For one, he has to choose what desire of his is stronger The love of sheep or to find out his personal legand. The answer to this difficult desision becomes more clear after the old man he meets tells him a story. The story is about a young boy that is told to rome around a castle with 2 drops of olive oil in a spoon and not spill one drop. The boy succeded in this endevor but he never explored the castles magnificance and instead focused on the oil. He is then told to go back aroung the castle and look at the castles magnificance with the oil again. He returns knowing much about the amazing castle but he had spilt all of the oil while doing this. The point of this story is to make saniago realize if he would rather worry about his sheep (the oil) and miss everything awsome in the world or forget his sheep and focus on everything around him (the castle).
On page 18 in our books, the old man that Santiago meets, claims that the biggest lie ever told is, "That at a certain point in our lives, we loose control of whats happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate." This quote proves that people rely on fate to make their desitions for them so they don't have to face the world. To some fate is a companion and to others, its just an easy way out.