Title: The Little Prince By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Characters:
- The Narrator | Aviator
- The Little Prince
- The Rose
- The King of Asteroid B-325
- The Vain Man of Asteroid B-326 | The Conceited Man of Asteroid B-326
- The Drunkard of Asteroid B-32
- The Businessman of Asteroid B-328
- The Street Lamp Lighter of Asteroid B-329
- The Geographer of Asteroid B-330
- The Fox
- The Snake
Settings:
- Sahara desert
- Asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330
- Planet Earth
- Man vs. man
- Man vs. society
Tone:
Sad, confusing, philosophic
Point of view:
First-person
Style:
A narrative story in a dialogue form
Theme:
The journey towards the truth from curiosity would cost so
much sadness and confusion. The Importance
of looking beneath the surface to find the real truth and meaning of a thing.
The pilot crashes in the Sahara
desert. He attempts to fix his engine, knowing that he only has a limited
supply of water. As he works on the engine, he later hears a small voice asking
him to draw a sheep. The narrator turns around to meet the little prince, and
after making several attempts at drawing the sheep, he settles on sketching a
box—he tells the little prince that the box contains a sheep, and to the
pilot's astonishment, the little prince is delighted. The pilot begins to learn
more about the little prince, discovering that he comes from the asteroid known
as B-612. Eventually, he begins to learn other details of the little prince's
planet as well, including the fact that baobab trees are a major menace and
that the object of the little prince's affection is a rose. This rose is very
vain, however, and tells lies, making the little prince unhappy. He decides
that he cannot trust her anymore and leaves his planet. The little prince first
encounters a king who claims to rule over everything, including the stars. He
has no subjects on his own planet to rule, however, and the little prince grows
bored and leaves. The second person the little prince meets is a conceited man
who enjoys applause and admiration. The third is a tippler who says that he
drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. The fourth grownup is a
businessman who is busy counting the stars so that he may own them.
At this point, the little prince
finds all the grownups very strange, and he continues onto the planet of the
lamplighter, who lights a lamp on his planet when night falls and puts it out
again when the sun rises. The little prince finds the lamplighter to be the
least ridiculous of all the grownups because he thinks of something other than
himself. The little prince then comes across a geographer who tells the little
prince that his rose is "ephemeral," or in other words, "in
danger of speedy disappearance." This alarms the little prince and makes
him regret leaving his rose. Nevertheless, he continues on his journey to the
planet Earth. The little prince lands in the middle of the Sahara desert, where
he encounters a snake. The snake speaks in riddles, hinting that he has a
powerful poison that can take the little prince back to his planet. The little
prince continues to travel on Earth, however, eventually discovering a bed of
roses, all identical to his own rose on asteroid B-612, making him question his
own rose's contention that it is unique.
The little prince goes on to meet
a railway switchman and a merchant before returning to the Sahara where he
meets the pilot. By the end of his story, the little prince and the pilot are
both very thirsty, and they decide to walk and find water. They discover a well
around daybreak, and they savor the drink as well as their time together.
The little prince explains that
the next day is the anniversary of his descent to Earth. He sends the pilot
away to fix his plane and tells him to come to meet him at the same spot the
following evening. The pilot fixes his engine and returns the next evening to
find the little prince conversing with the poisonous snake. The little prince
warns the pilot that he must return to his planet and that it will "look a
little as if I were dying." The little prince allows the snake to poison
him, and he falls gently to the sand. The narrator is reassured by the fact
that the little prince's body is gone the following day and believes that it
means he made it back to asteroid B-612. He worries, however, whether the sheep
he drew will eat the prince's rose.
Reflection
“In the course of this life, I
have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been
concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among
grown−ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much
improved my opinion of them.”
Life is full of journeys that we never expected to find reality from within, the more we see the reality- the more we realize the differences and uniqueness of the people. However, with one confusion would lead to more confusion and when tried to sum up all of the confusion, we would understand what we are confused about. In these times, we would meet people that would help us to grow in many ways. We fall, cry, and laugh in a world that full of adventures and mystery.
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