The Little Prince

Born in Lyon of France in 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry considered himself primarily as a pilot. For 20 years he made numerous cartography and mailing missions for commercial companies. Air transmissions were the key factor concerning his professional and literature profile. He started writing The Little Prince during the WW II, when he was forced to abandon airforce (due to Germany’s invasion in France) and seek refuge in New York. His great desire of going back, hopefully after the war, is depicted as the nostalgia of being a child again, something that is so evident in Little Prince. The Sahara desert is the scenery of Little Prince’s story. The narrator’s plane has crashed there and he has scarcely some food and water to survive. Trying to comprehend what caused the crash, the Little Prince appears. The serious blonde little boy asks to draw him a sheep. The narrator consents to the strange fellow’s request. They soon become friends and the Little Prince informs the pilot that he is from a small planet, the asteroid 325, talks to him about the baobabs, his planet volcanoes and the mysterious rose that grew on his planet. He also talks to him about their friendship and the lie that evoked his journey to other planets. Often puzzled by the grown-ups’ behavior, the little traveler becomes a total and eternal symbol of innocence and love, of responsibility and devotion. Through him we get to see how insightful children are and how grown-ups aren’t. Children use their heart to feel what’s really important, not the eyes…