Character Review of the Little Prince

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The aviator at the same time narrator presents his experience with the little prince. A frustrated artist, adults neglected his potential skill to draw at a young age and was forced to study geography, arithmetic, and the like. While piloting his aeroplane, he was forced to land in the Saharan desert. Here, he meets the little prince.

The aviator can be regarded as a representation of the author himself. The commonalities of the author and the narrator are just enough to consider the possibility.

While repairing his engine, the little prince asks him the purpose of the thorns on a flower. But the aviator was too occupied in his business that he replied:

“Don’t you see—I’m busy matters of consequence”

The little prince then replied:

“You talk just like the grown-ups” (24)

The narrator felt ashamed upon hearing this from the little prince. For all his life he had the idea of grown-ups as people who do not understand the important things in life and focuses on numbers and statistics, now he is like them. The irony encountered in this situation gave me the idea that we cannot escape time; we cannot lock ourselves forever in our innocent child selves.

The Little Prince is an innocent young boy from asteroid B-612 who, after leaving his home planet, journeys around the universe and eventually finding himself on Earth. He is a curious individual most often puzzled by the behaviour and acts of the grown-ups. Upon encounter with the aviator he immediately asks him to draw a sheep. A few drawings of the aviator were rejected but the last drawing of the aviator—a box--painted a smile on the little prince’s face. This scene highlights the innocence and the richness of the imagination of the young boy.

As much as I want to believe that the little prince was real and all his experiences with the aviator, the rose, the fox, and all the other characters, I can’t help to consider the possibility that the little prince was a product of the aviator’s imagination; the child within him or possibly how the author saw himself as a child. The situation/context where the little prince appeared added to the evidence. The little prince appeared just a few moments after the aeroplane of the aviator crashed in a desolate Saharan desert—most likely the best place for mirages and hallucinations to occur. The little prince was also fond of asking questions but when he was the one asked he refuses to answer. This got me more to believe that the little prince is a personification of the inner ego of the aviator. For eight days, the little prince kept the aviator company until he went back to his planet or possibly died at the same time the aeroplane was fixed.

“I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine,” he said. “Now you can go back home—“

“How do you know about that”…

“I, too, am going back home today…” (80)

Whatever the real identity of the little prince may be it is sure that he is a symbol of hope, love, innocence and most importantly the child that lies inside all of us.

The little prince is not your ordinary fairytale. It speaks through the innocence of a child but made a satire that dealt with the dull and serious world of adults. The behaviour and personality of each character in the story perfectly reflects the society we are in today; A canonical text that will forever be considered a great literary work.

Bibliography

Anellii, Jessica, Samantha East, Sarah Kesler, Max Kopanygin, and Maayan Ziv. "Antoine De Saint-Exupéry: The Real Little Prince." Children's Literature Archive. Ryerson University, 2010. Web. 23 May 2014.

Webster, Paul. "Flying into a Literary Storm." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 24 June 2000. Web. 23 May 2014.

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Little Prince.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. “The Little Prince.” 1943. Trans. Katherine Woods. London: Egmont UK Limited, 2009. Print.