Title: The Little Prince

Author: Antoine de St-Exupery

Main Characters: The little prince, the pilot, the rose, the fox, the snake, etc.

Despite I’ve not in my childhood yet, I still prefer reading fairy-tale stories. The tales, which accompany with me in my old days, often make me think of some precious experience and sensation which only belong to children. This summer I’ve review this kind of tale, which was published in 1940. It’s the world-famous fairy-tale by the French author, Antoine de St-Exupery, The Little Prince.

As many other fairy-tales, the outline of The Little Prince is not very complex. “I”, the narrator of the story, is a pilot whose plane has something wrong and lands in the Sahara. In this occasion, the pilot makes the acquaintance of the little prince, a little boy from another planet, the Asteroid B612. The little prince has escaped from his tiny planet, because he has some quarrel with a rose, which grows on his planet. In that case he left his own planet and took an exploration at some neighbor asteroids.

On his all-alone journey, the little prince meets different kinds of people, which includes a king, a conceited man, a tippler, a businessman, a lamplighter and a geographer. From these people he gets a conclusion that the grown-ups are very odd. Following the instruction of the geographer, he descends in the Sahara, on the earth.

Traveling on the earth, the little prince, who sees a garden of five-thousand roses, is overcome with astonishment and sadness, as he considers his rose is unique in the universe before. At that time a fox appears. The fox, who tell the little prince about the meaning of the word “tame”, becomes his new friend. At the time to say farewell, the fox makes him know that his rose is unique because she is his rose and tamed by him. From that the little prince begins to treasure friendship and be responsible to his rose.

At the anniversary day of his descent of the earth, rejecting the pilot’s advice, he goes back to his own planet by bite of a snake. “It’s too far. I can not carry this body with me. It’s too heavy.” he said. He tells his friend, the pilot, he must be responsible for his rose, so he has to go back. At the end the author doesn’t tell us the ending directly. Maybe it’s more significant for us to imagine, and for more, think over.

One of the important characters is the rose. Growing on the planet, she is very beautiful, but her coquetry and vanity suffer the little prince a lot. In spite of they love each other, he soon becomes unhappy. On the time of his departure, he just knows she certainly loves him. The character of the little prince actually represents the children, and their native thoughts and deeds. On the contrary, the inhabitants on the other planets, such as the king, the businessman and the conceited man, they also reflect the defects in the grown-up’s world. The real theme of this fairy-tale with a little sadness, I guess, is the consequence of pure love and friendship in our lives, but not others “matters of consequence” of the grown-ups.

Unbelievable, this little book moved me a lot. I seldom think about the true meaning of love and life before. Well, now I can say, with my short sixteen-year’s life experience, it’s like the stars in the sky that lit my heart. The little prince is not only an ordinary fairy-tale for children, but also for grown-ups, and our teenagers. Nevertheless, when I read this book, I feel a little sad – about ourselves, whom are losing more and more innocence.

 Five questions:

Q1: In what kinds of occasion that the pilot makes the acquaintance of the little prince?

A1: The pilot has an accident with his plane in the Desert of Sahara, without any mechanics or passengers. The first night, when sleeping in the sand, he is awakened by a little odd voice calling him to draw him a sheep. Then he sees a most extraordinary small boy stand there. In that case he makes the acquaintance of the little prince.

Q2: Why the little prince become doubt about the flower after a piece of time?

A2: The flower begins very quickly to torment the little prince with her vanity. For instance, she always force herself cough a little so that he should suffer from remorse just the same. In spite of all the good will that is inseparable from his love, has soon come to doubt her.

Q3: Why the little prince plunge in to deep dejection when he visits the tippler’s planet?

A3: The tippler is drinking there. When the little prince asks why he drink, he says so he might forget. When the boy demands what he forget, he says he forget that he is ashamed. When the little prince asks what he ashamed of, he says he forget the ashamed of drinking. The circulated answer seems to be absurd and ridiculous. So the little prince plunges in to deep dejection.

Q4: What’s the meaning of the word “tame” that the fox tells the little prince?

A4: “Tame”, is an act too often neglected, which means to establish ties. According to the fox, to him now, the little prince is nothing more than a little boy, and he is nothing more than a fox, like the others. They both have no needs of each other, But if the little prince tames him, they will need each other. They will be unique in each other’s worlds.

Q5: Why the little prince knows that the rose of him is unique in the world at last?

A5: Because his rose is not like the other five-thousand roses planted in the garden. He thinks in herself all alone she is more important that all he hundreds of others. Because it is she he has watered. It is she that he has put under the glass globe; because it is she that he has sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that he has killed the caterpillars, except the two or three that they save to become butterflies; because it is she that he has listened to, when she grumbles, or boasts, or even sometimes when she says nothing; because she is his rose.