Chapter One: The Little Prince

-->

The Little Prince could be read on two levels. First, it teaches a philosophy on life by reminding us what humanity is all about in the forms of the Prince, the Narrator, the Fox, the Rose, and the Snake. Second, the story is about the “beautiful and sad passage of the world,” in that adults, although they themselves were once children, could appreciate things children do.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author, through The Little Prince, started his search of wisdom and the meaning of life. He explains that, "as we grow older, we become enslaved by our egotistical and conceited worlds like that of the geographer, the king, the businessman, the drunk, the lamplighter, and the conceited man." From his perspective, moreover, the little prince was Saint-Exupery’s plea about a decaying humanity that values material things that mattered so little or what he coined as “matters of consequence.” Thus, he wrote,

 “For centuries, humanity has been descending an immense staircase whose top is hidden in the clouds and whose lowest steps are lost in a dark abyss. We could have ascended the staircase; instead, we choose to descend it. Spiritual decay is terrible… There is one problem and only one in the world: to revive in people some sense of spiritual meaning…”

Summary

The Little Prince is told in the first person’s point of view. The pilot speaks of his encounters with the little prince and tells of events that happened to him and to the prince separately.

On one of his many flights, the pilot crashed his plane into a desert. As he attempts to fix his airplane, he meets the little prince. Both the pilot and the little prince engage in dialogue and soon become friends. As he continues to be the confidant of the little prince, the pilot himself is transformed by the stories of the prince.

For instance, he learned from the little prince what the fox had shared to him. Learning about the fox, he began to search for a well symbolizing the need for exploration and to understand the truth about life.

In each of the planets he visited after leaving his own planet because of a disagreement with the rose, the little prince met people incapable of communicating with him because they did not look at him with their hearts, but only with their eyes. The inhabitants of each planet were only interested in how they could make use of him. 

On his visit to these planets, furthermore, the little prince learned quickly that with these people, communication is a one-way process. They never really listened to any question unless it has something to do with their concern.

Meanwhile, on his journey to the Earth, the Prince, in the last scene, which illustrates the statement, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” is perhaps the most symbolic and moving scene. The scene very well captures the secret the fox wanted to reveal to the prince. The basic message is repeated throughout the book at different angles or situations.

“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” Page 73 “Yes. The house, the stars, the desert—what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!” Page74.

In essence, then, most of the things that seem important in life could not be counted and measured.

How then could we measure life, beauty, love, faith, and intelligence?

These are mysterious things, much more internal than external. They also could not be owned. They could only be searched for and struggled for. They will always escape us. They will always be out of reach. They belong much more to the field of dreams than to reality.

The lesson of The Little Prince is very clear: 

Do not trust your eyes too quickly because there is more than the eyes could see. One has to use his or her imagination to discover possibilities or to know other people. This is true when the eyes belong to adults. Their eyes will automatically interpret anything or anybody in terms of their usefulness.

Do we actually know who we really are?

Before he came to Earth, he met different characters from each of the planets he visited. In each planet, he meets an adult who shows a certain weakness or flaw.

As he gets to Earth, moreover, the little prince starts his journey both as a student and a teacher. His encounter with the fox urged him to share with the narrator what he learned about love.

The Pilot
(The Pretentious Adult)

When he was a child, the pilot used to draw things that reflected his interpretation of the world around him; but this faded when adults criticized his imaginative ideals; thus, he decided to become a pilot.

As we convince ourselves to grow-up, because others tell us to, we lose our authentic selves. And although we attempt to experience life   through defined assumptions, we make up stories about the world and to a degree, live out their plots according to their expectations.

The Rose
(The Proud Enabler)

Consequently, we fall from innocence and we feverishly try to return to it at a more sophisticated and less childish level (Pearson, 1986).

The rose, although only appearing in a couple of chapters, is still an important character because she caused the little prince to set forth an exploration. In a sense, it was her pride that pushed the little prince to leave; and yet, it is her enduring memory, which prompted the prince to go back to his asteroid. Saint-Exupery, in other citations, explains.

“As a character that gains significance because of how much time and effort the prince has invested in caring for her, the rose embodies the fox’s statement that love comes from investing in other people.”

The Fox
(The Unlikely Teacher)

As the prince begins his journey on Earth, the fox came along establishing a friendship with the little prince. The fox asked the prince to tame him; and in doing so, he became the student as well as the former’s instructor. In his last meeting with the little prince, the fox explained to him why the rose was important.

 As we are focused on our careers and the material wealth we gain, we leave behind what is essential; thus, narrowing our world and blinding us from what is tangible and not what lies in our hearts.

At last, the fox said to the little prince, “Here is my secret, it is quite simple, one sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

The King
(The Delusional Controller)

The king claimed he could “control” the stars by ordering them to do what they would anyway. As a king of his planet, he extends this control to human subjects. According to the king, it is the citizen’s duty to only obey demands that are reasonable. 

So, at the end of their encounter, he orders the prince to leave as his ambassador.

The Conceited Man
(The Metrosexual)

In the next planet he visited, the prince met a man who wants to be admired by everyone; but he lives alone on his planet. Hence, he cannot hear anything that is not a compliment.

Thus, when the prince asked the conceited man what he should do for his hat to fall, the conceited man did not hear him because conceited men only hear praises.

The Drunk
(The Vicarious Charlatan)

On the third planet, the prince meets a man who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking and this becomes entrapped in his own cyclical web of denial.

The Businessman
(The Selfish Possessor)

Next, the prince meets a businessman who is constantly busy counting the stars. In their brief discussion, the prince goes on to define the meaning of property. The prince proudly stated he owns the flower and the volcanoes on his planet because he cares for them and in they care for him.

And when he asked the businessman what he was counting, the businessman did not hear him because he only sees numbers and figures. The businessman, moreover, is the best representative of them all. He best exemplifies the total inability to see beyond one’s selfish interest, the incapability to listen to others’ interests, and the lack of openness to anything else than what can be measured. He is only interested in counting them and in owning them. They make him feel rich and important.

Therefore, as he explains to the businessman, because one cannot maintain the stars, the businessman cannot own them.

The Lamplighter
(The Enduring Soulmate)

The prince admires the lamplighter. According to the prince, he is the only adult he met who cares enough about something other than himself.

This character lives on an asteroid, which rotates every minute. Long ago, he was charged with the task of lighting the lamp at night and extinguishing it in the morning. At that point, the asteroid revolved at a reasonable rate; and he had time to rest.

As time went on, however, the rotation sped up. The lamplighter, refusing to turn his back on his work, now lights and extinguishes the lamp once a minute, getting no rest. When he lights his streetlamp, it is as if he brought one more start to life or one flower.

That is a beautiful occupation according to the prince. A statement like this shows that the little prince uses his heart not his eyes to see the beauty of what the lamplighter’s task means to him and maybe to the rest of the world.

The Geographer
(The Doubting Thomas)

Lastly, the geographer, who spends all of his time making maps, never left his desk to explore, going on the pretext that is the job of an explorer to do so.

When he talked to the geographer about his flower, which he thought was the most beautiful part of his planet, the geographer was interested only in things that last, non-ephemeral things, which quickly come and go.

Thus, even if an explorer were to visit the geographer, he is very doubtful of any explorer’s character and would most likely disregard the report. In a sense, he does not trust anything he has not seen with his own eyes, yet will not leave his desk.

Towards the end, although an individual of high caliber, the prince was still susceptible to pain as symbolized by the snakebite. His inquiries indicate that sometimes the search for answers is a more satisfying experience than knowing the answers.

Lessons

The Little Prince
(The Student of Life)

The stories of the little prince is the story of a journey—the journey away from his planet, through various planets, then through the Earth, and finally back to his own planet. It is a journey of searching and through searching of discovery; and, though discovery of meaning (de Gigord, 1999).

The story of the prince, moreover, reflects our own discovery of meaning. Our own journeys force us to realize there are many points of view other than our own. As adults, we (could) have different interpretations of the little prince’s story. 

We are blinded by the materialism and pretensions we see and hear throughout the years. 

Our knowledge about life and the world, furthermore, impedes our desire to capture the real meaning of life. Our personal encounters, meanwhile, are not meaningful enough to accord us the appropriate perspective(s) in life.

And as we declare war on our true selves, we could end up feeling as though we have lost our souls. In shying away from the quest, however, we experience nonlife and accordingly, we call forth less life in the culture.

Finally, as we attempt to comprehend the symbolism of Saint-Exupery’s character, we could be relieved of the arduous task of figuring things out on our own. The Little Prince could provide us impetus to view life (again) through the eyes of a child encased in bodies ripened by time.*

Background

It has been nearly eleven years since I read the book, “The Little Prince,” and at that time, reading the book was a requirement in niveau trois at the Alliance Francaise de Manille. During that time, moreover, Madame Janine Audrain begged for a literary reading of “Le Petit Prince” to supplement our vocabulary needs in French. We would have otherwise been ostracized from niveau trois if we did not do our part—after all, it was French conversation class.

Meanwhile, many of us who, by that time had only mustered a few hundred French words, resisted the idea of reading the original text because of its rich vocabulary and allusions.

So, to aid us in understanding the book, we each bought our own copy of Le Petit Prince in English. Still, the book, even in its English translation reflected a French mindset and has a profound influence on us who were learning the Francophone way of reading and interpreting texts or books.

As I read The Little Prince again this time, I see myself interpreting the book with a completely new perspective. A philosophical view, aided by a new set of morals, shaped by experience and by people whose personalities echo the idiosyncrasies of the characters in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince.

Reference:

Reference withheld for Intellectual Property Rights purposes.

Disclaimer:

The following text is a work in progress.

-->