The Little Prince-Antoine De Saint-Exupery(Leya Reginald-20umat3738)

 When every one of us is a child, we are greeting this world with open arms and minds.

Getting older, we lose this amazing ability to explore both the outer and the inner worlds. Modern societies are full of dull narrow-minded people whose heads are overflown with stereotypes and prejudices.

Is it possible for adults to gain that curiosity and passion they had in their childhood? In fact, it is – Antoine de Saint-Exupery reveals the biggest secrets how to do it in his work, The Little Prince. Written in the form of a tale, this book is aimed not only at children. Except for the superficial level, this work makes adults to question the necessity of such typical traits of adulthood as ignorance, bluntness, narrow-mindedness, and lack of imagination.

The Little Prince was written in 1943 when Saint-Exupery had a complicated period in his life. It’s full of emotional feelings concerning his childhood, war experiences, human nature, plus love to the most important woman in his life, his wife, who is the prototype of one of the characters, the Rose. This story has a lot of hidden meanings, signs, allegories, and allusions.
The main character and narrator have similarities with the author. Saint-Exupery was a pilot himself and took part in the WW2. The same as his character, he survived a crash in the Sahara Desert, and this is where events of the book take place. A lonely pilot finds himself in the middle of the desert with the plane beyond repair and limited food and water supplies. The desert is a hostile environment – the pilot felt isolated and forsaken wondering whether he can stay alive and his predictions are gloomy.

Imagine his surprise, when his forced desolation is interrupted by a small boy with blond hair and passion to drawings. All illustrations that are used in this book are originally created by Saint-Exupery as additional means to explain those matters that can’t be explained by words. The boy’s name is the Little Prince. He lives on one of many tiny stars in space called Asteroid 325. He loves his planet but circumstances plus unstoppable desire to explore the world make him leave his home.
He also has a deeper purpose – to find more about true relationships between people which are called “friendship.” But the answer is escaping from him as no one knows can give him a proper explanation and even doesn’t seem to have an explanation. He has visited other planets and, frankly, is quite disappointing by what he saw. Being a child with a curious mind, he tries to understand why people spend their days wasting their time on needless things. This small wanderer has seen people being selfish, greedy, ignorant, dull, and unimaginative. The more people he sees, the worse impressions he has. Our planet is his last attempt to get some answers, which will reveal the true nature of humans.
Landing in that desert, the pilot is so far the only person prince has seen on Earth. The two of them represent two different worlds – the world of pragmatic senseless adulthood and inquisitive unbiased childhood. It’s not the age difference that makes someone an adult; it’s about the understanding of true values, hidden beauty, and responsibility. The author uses the term “serious matters” a lot in his book proving that they differ for adults and children. And children are often those who can see deeper into the genuine nature of things.

The Little Prince is, in fact, a quiz for adults to reevaluate their lifestyle, moral standards, and choices every one of us makes every day. This is a philosophical work that needs to be explored thoroughly if you really want to get messages sent by its author.