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posted 4/29/23 at 23:22
A few weeks ago, I reread the story "The Little Prince". I had only a few vague memories about it. I read the book when I was quite young, and I do remember liking it a bit, but it wasn't so memorable to me that after a few years I completely forgot about 3/4 of the plot. I *knew* that it was good, don't get me wrong, I just didn't remember *why*. I also watched the movie adaptation of it, although I also don't remember much about it or how much it strayed away from its original material. Regardless, I decided one day to revisit this curious little short story and what exactly made so many people fall in love with it.
The story revolves around a young prince who travels from planet to planet and meets various characters, including a fox and a pilot, who help him learn important lessons about life and love. The prince starts his journey by leaving his tiny planet and encountering a pilot who has crash-landed in the desert. The pilot becomes the prince's friend and learns about his adventures and encounters with different beings, including a vain rose on his own planet, a king, a conceited man, a drunkard, a businessman, and a geographer. The prince's experiences with these characters reveal the flaws of human nature and the importance of love and friendship. The prince also meets a fox who teaches him about the beauty of taming and the importance of building relationships based on trust and commitment. The fox gives the prince a lesson in love and explains that "what is essential is invisible to the eye."
This story is... bittersweet, to say the least. It wasn't a gut-wrenching, bawling-my-eyes-out kind of story, but it sure made me think for a moment after I finished reading it.
Take for instance when the prince meets the star-collecting businessman:
"I myself own a flower," he continued his conversation with the businessman, "which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I clean out every week (for I also clean out the one that is extinct; one never knows). It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them. But you are of no use to the stars . . ." ⏎
The businessman opened his mouth, but he found nothing to say in answer. And the little prince went away.”
Or the last time the prince and his rose talk:
“She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...”
Or the part where the prince tames a fox on Earth:
“I am looking for friends. What does that mean -- tame?" ⏎
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." ⏎
"To establish ties?" ⏎
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”
Fine, maybe I did cry just a bit...
For a children's story, this sure does have many sad themes, doesn't it? Criticisms about materialism and capitalism, questioning the "importance" of "important" things in our life, regrets and mistakes from being naive, and the uniqueness of people that are special to us. What was Antoine's intention in creating this story? Was he sure that children would be able to pick up these messages?
Or, perhaps, we are all chidren too...
In my personal opinion, what Antoine truly wants to say in this story is that all of us has forgotten what it is like to be a child; free from the preconceived notions that we have from our experiences. You can see this in the story as a literal dynamic between the pilot and the prince, assuming that the prince was simply the pilot's imagination (which isn't out of the question, is it?) We could look at the story like this: the prince is a part of him that he has long since forgotten, for the sake of becoming an adult and interacting with other adults. Due to severe dehydration and the realization of the situation he is in, he starts hallucinating At first the prince is a complete stranger, but after a while the two start to understand each other. Eventually, the pilot miraculously finds a well, which saves him from dehydration. With this cleared mind, however, he loses the prince like before.
Is it a coincidence that the prince shows up the day after the pilot crashes in the middle of the desert? And that the prince dies the day after they find the well? You could explain the events like the ones in the garden, the railway station, and with the fox as things that have happened in the past to the pilot.
For me, this is what we feel about the world we are in today. We seem to be missing something, something vitally important. *Climate change. Global conflict. Poverty. What went wrong? When? How?* Out of desperation, we turn back to our past and think intently. And when we get to this point, we are hit with a gust of reality. There is too much in this world, too much to logically and realistically think about any of this.
Children may be able to see it as a snake eating an elephant and not simply as a hat, but would they be able to tell that this is in fact a snail riding a boa constrictor eating an elephant playing the trumpet with a monkey sidekick by his side wearing a drum around his neck while a bird is about to dive into said boa constrictor?
Perhaps, it is about time we scrap this drawing and start anew. It will be hard, of course. But maybe it truly is the only way.
Interestingly enough, Antoine himself crashed a plane one time in the middle of the desert, and almost died from dehydration. He was saved by someone from a local community who stumbled upon them. If it were not for the kindness of the Bedouin, the story of "The Little Prince" would not be here. Antoine is a passionate writer who understands what it means to create; this clearly shows in his drafts where 2/3 of the text would be crossed off. How stressful must it have been to know that he still had to provide to himself and his family while simultaneously having to finish a story that he desires to be conceived.
"The Little Prince" now remains to be one of my favorite written works of all time. With all the analysis and thinking that I can do with this story, it cannot replace what I felt while reading this. I'll end this article with what has to be my favorite quote:
“You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.” ⏎
“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...”