Lunes, Enero 4, 2010
Lunes, Disyembre 28, 2009
The Little Prince
The title character of The Little Prince is a pure and innocent traveler from outer space whom the narrator encounters in the Sahara desert. Before the little prince lands on Earth, Saint-Exupéry contrasts the prince’s childlike character with different adult characters by having the prince hop from one neighboring planet to another. On each planet, the prince meets a different type of adult and reveals that character’s frivolities and weaknesses. Once on Earth, however, the little prince becomes a student as well as a teacher. From his friend the fox, the little prince learns what love entails, and in turn he passes on those lessons to the narrator.
The little prince has few of the glaring flaws evident in the other characters, and he is immediately shown to be a character of high caliber by his ability to recognize the narrator’s Drawing Number One as a picture of a boa constrictor that has eaten a snake. Nevertheless, the prince’s fear as he prepares to be sent back to his planet by a snakebite shows that he is susceptible to the same emotions as the rest of us. Most notably, the prince is bound by his love for the rose he has left on his home planet. His constant questioning also indicates that one’s search for answers can be more important than the answers themselves.
The Narrator
The narrator of The Little Prince is an adult in years, but he explains that he was rejuvenated six years earlier after he crashed his plane in the desert. He was an imaginative child whose first drawing was a cryptic interpretation of a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant. Eventually, he abandoned art for the grown-up profession of pilot, and he lives a lonely life until he encounters the little prince. He serves as the prince’s confidant and relays the prince’s story to us, but the narrator also undergoes transformations of his own. After listening to the prince’s story about the knowledge the prince has learned from the fox, the narrator himself learns the fox’s lessons about what makes things important when he searches for water in the desert. The narrator’s search for the well indicates that lessons must be learned through personal exploration and not only from books or others’ teachings.
Both the narrator and the prince are protagonists of the story, but they differ in significant ways. Whereas the prince is mystical and supernatural, the pilot is a human being who grows and develops over time. When the narrator first encounters the prince, he cannot grasp the subtle truths that the prince presents to him, whereas the prince is able to comprehend instantly the lessons his explorations teach him. This shortcoming on the narrator’s part makes him a character we can relate to as human beings more easily than we can relate to the otherworldly, extraordinarily perceptive little prince.
The Rose
Although the rose appears only in a couple of chapters, she is crucial to the novel as a whole because her melodramatic, proud nature is what causes the prince to leave his planet and begin his explorations. Also, the prince’s memory of his rose is what prompts his desire to return. As a character who gains significance because of how much time and effort the prince has invested in caring for her, the rose embodies the fox’s statement that love comes from investing in other people. Although the rose is, for the most part, vain and naïve, the prince still loves her deeply because of the time he has spent watering and caring for her.
Much has been written comparing the little prince’s relationship with his rose to the relationship between Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his wife, Consuelo, but the rose can also be read as a symbol of universal love. In literature, the rose has long served as a symbol of the beloved, and Saint-Exupéry takes that image in good stride, giving the prince’s flower human characteristics, both good and bad. Because of the rose, the prince learns that what is most essential is invisible, that time away from one’s beloved causes a person to better appreciate that love, and that love engenders responsibility—all of which are broad morals that obviously extend beyond the author’s personal history.
The Fox
The fox appears quite suddenly and inexplicably while the prince is mourning the ordinariness of his rose after having come across the rose garden. When the fox immediately sets about establishing a friendship between himself and the prince, it seems that instruction is the fox’s sole purpose. Yet when he begs the little prince to tame him, the fox appears to be the little prince’s pupil as well as his instructor. In his lessons about taming, the fox argues for the importance of ceremonies and rituals, showing that such tools are important even outside the strict world of grown-ups.
In his final encounter with the prince, the fox facilitates the prince’s departure by making sure the prince understands why his rose is so important to him. This encounter displays an ideal type of friendship because even though the prince’s departure causes the fox great pain, the fox behaves unselfishly, encouraging the prince to act in his own best interest.
The Snake
Even though the snake the little prince encounters in the desert speaks in riddles, he demands less interpretation than the other symbolic figures in the novel. The snake also has less to learn than many of the other characters. The grown-ups on the various planets are too narrow-minded for their own good, and the prince and the narrator edge closer to enlightenment, but the serpent does not require answers or even ask questions. In fact, the snake is so confident he has mastered life’s mysteries that he tells the prince he speaks only in riddles because he can solve all riddles. In a story about mysteries, the snake is the only absolute. His poisonous bite and biblical allusion indicate that he represents the unavoidable phenomenon of death.
The Little Prince - One of the two protagonists of the story. After leaving his home planet and his beloved rose, the prince journeys around the universe, ending up on Earth. Frequently perplexed by the behavior of grown-ups, the prince symbolizes the hope, love, innocence, and insight of childhood that lie dormant in all of us. Though the prince is sociable and meets a number of characters as he travels, he never stops loving and missing the rose on his home planet. 
The Narrator - A lonely pilot who, while stranded in the desert, befriends the little prince. They spend eight days together in the desert before the little prince returns to his home planet. Although he is discouraged from drawing early in his life because adults cannot understand his drawings, the narrator illustrates his own story and makes several drawings for the little prince. The narrator is a grown-up, but his view of the world is more like a child’s than an adult’s. After the little prince departs, the narrator feels both refreshed and saddened. The King - On the first planet the little prince visits, he encounters a king who claims to rule the entire universe. While not unkindly, the king’s power is empty. He is able to command people to do only what they already would do.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Little Prince.
The Rose - A coquettish flower who has trouble expressing her love for the little prince and consequently drives him away. Simultaneously vain and naïve, she informs the little prince of her love for him too late to persuade him to stay home and not to travel. Throughout the story, she occupies the prince’s thoughts and heart.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Rose.
The Fox - Although the fox asks the little prince to tame him, the fox is in some ways the more knowledgeable of the two characters, and he helps steer the prince toward what is important in life. In the secret the fox tells the little prince before they say their good-byes, the fox sums up three important lessons: only the heart can see correctly; the prince’s time away from his planet has made him appreciate his rose more; and love entails responsibility.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Fox.
The Snake - The first character the prince meets on Earth, who ultimately sends the prince back to the heavens by biting him. A constant enigma, the snake speaks in riddles and evokes the snake of the Bible, which incites Adam and Eve’s eviction from Eden by luring them into eating the forbidden fruit.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Snake.
The Baobabs - Baobabs, harmless trees on Earth, pose a great threat to smaller planets like the prince’s if left unchecked. They can squeeze whole planets to pieces with their roots. Although baobabs have no malicious opinions or intentions, they represent the grave danger that can befall people who are too lazy or indifferent to keep a wary eye on the world around them.
The Vain Man - The sole resident of the second planet the little prince visits. The vain man is lonely and craves admiration from all who pass by. However, only by being alone is he assured of being the richest and best-looking man on his planet.
The Drunkard - The third person the little prince encounters after leaving home is a drunkard, who spends his days and nights lost in a stupor. The drunkard is a sad figure, but he is also foolish because he drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.
The Businessman - A caricature of grown-ups who is the fourth person the little prince visits. Too busy even to greet his visitor, the businessman owns all the stars. Yet he cannot remember what they are called and contributes nothing to them. Although the little prince comments on the oddity of the grown-ups he meets, the businessman is the only character the prince actively chastises.
The Lamplighter - The fifth and most complex figure the prince encounters before landing on Earth. At first, the lamplighter appears to be yet another ridiculous character with no real purpose, but his selfless devotion to his orders earns him the little prince’s admiration. Of all the adults the little prince encounters before reaching Earth, the lamplighter is the only one the prince thinks he could befriend.
The Geographe - r The sixth and final character the little prince encounters before he lands on Earth. Although the geographer is apparently well-read, he refuses to learn about his own planet, saying it is a job for explorers. He recommends that the little prince visit Earth, and his comments on the ephemeral nature of flowers reveal to the prince that his own flower will not last forever.
The Railway Switchman - The railway switchman works at the hub for the enormous trains that rush back and forth carrying dissatisfied adults from one place to the other. He has more perspective on life than the unhappy, thoughtless passengers his trains ferry. He agrees with the prince that the children are the only ones who appreciate and enjoy the beauty of the train rides.
The Salesclerk - The salesclerk sells pills that quench thirst on the grounds that people can save up to fifty-three minutes a day if they don’t have to stop to drink. He symbolizes the modern world’s misplaced emphasis on saving time and taking shortcuts.
The Roses in the Rose Garden - The sight of the rose garden first leads the prince to believe that his flower is not, in fact, unique. However, with the fox’s guidance, the prince realizes that even so many similar flowers cannot stop his own rose from being unique.
The Three-Petaled Flower - The three-petaled flower lives alone in the desert, watching the occasional caravan pass by. She mistakenly informs the prince that there are only a handful of men in the world and that their lack of roots means they are often blown along.
The Little Prince’s Echo - The little prince’s echo is not really a character, but the little prince mistakes it for one. When he shouts from a mountaintop, he hears his echo and believes that Earth people simply repeat what is said to them.
The Turkish Astronomer - The first human to discover the prince’s home, Asteroid B-612. When the Turkish astronomer first presents his discovery, no one believes him on account of his Turkish costume. Years later, he makes the same presentation wearing Western clothes, and his discovery is well received. The scientific community’s treatment of the Turkish astronomer reveals that ignorance propels xenophobia (a fear or hatred of foreigners) and racism.
Huwebes, Disyembre 17, 2009
Little prince plot
The narrator's point of view is interwoven in the first nine chapters and changes from third person to first person. In the first eight days of the narrator being stranded in the desert, the prince has been telling these stories to the narrator.
The prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows the prince a picture that he had previously drawn; a boa with an elephant in its stomach, a drawing which previous viewers mistook for a hat. "No! No!", exclaims the prince. "I don't want a boa constrictor from the inside or outside. I want a sheep!...". He tries a few sheep drawings, which the prince rejects. Finally he draws a box, which he explains has the sheep inside. The prince, who can see the sheep inside the box just as well as he can see the elephant in the boa, says "That's perfect".
The home asteroid or "planet" of the little prince is introduced. His asteroid (planet) is house-sized and named B612, which has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose among various other objects. The actual naming of the asteroid B612 is an important concept in the book that illustrates the fact that adults will only believe a scientist who is dressed or acts the same way as they do. According to the book, the asteroid was sighted by a Turkish astronomer in 1909 who had then made a formal demonstration of asteroid B612 to the International Astronomical Congress. "No one had believed him on the count of the way he was dressed." Then, he and his people dressed like Europeans and went again to present asteroid B612 to the International Astronomical Congress and they fully believed him and this time credited him with the work.
The prince spends his days caring for his "planet", pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The trees will make his little planet turn to dust if they are not removed. Throughout the book he is taught to be patient and to do hard work to keep his "planet" in order. The prince falls in love with a rose that takes root in his planet, who returns his love but is unable to express it due to her own pettiness. He leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like, and visits six other asteroids (numbered from 325 to 330) each of which is inhabited by an adult who is foolish in his own way:
- The King who can apparently "control" the stars but only by ordering them to do what they would do anyway. He then relates this to his human subjects; it is the citizens' duty to obey, but only if the king's demands are reasonable. He orders the prince to leave as his ambassador.
- The Conceited Man who wants to be admired by everyone, but lives alone on his planet. He cannot hear anything that is not a compliment.
- The Drunkard/Tippler who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.
- The Businessman who is constantly busy counting the stars he thinks he owns. He wishes to use them to buy more stars. The prince then goes on to define property. The prince owns the flower and volcanoes on his planet because he cares for them and they care for him, but because one cannot maintain the stars or be of use to them, he argues, the Businessman cannot own them.
- The Lamplighter who lives on an asteroid which rotates once a minute. Long ago, he was charged with the task of lighting the lamp at night and extinguishing it in the morning. At that point, the asteroid revolved at a reasonable rate, and he had time to rest. As time went on, the rotation sped up. Refusing to turn his back on his work, he now lights and extinguishes the lamp once a minute, getting no rest. The prince empathizes with the Lamplighter, who is the only adult he meets to care about something other than himself.
- The Geographer who spends all of his time making maps, but never leaves his desk to examine anywhere (even his own planet), considering that is the job of an explorer. The Geographer is in any case very doubting of any explorer's character and would most likely disregard the report. He does not trust things he has not seen with his own eyes, yet will not leave his desk. Out of professional interest, the geographer asks the prince to describe his asteroid. The prince describes the volcanoes and the rose. "We don't record flowers", says the geographer, "because they are only ephemeral". The prince is shocked and hurt to learn that his flower will someday be gone. The geographer then recommends that he visit the Earth.
[edit] The visit to Earth
Chapter 16 begins: "So then the seventh planet was the Earth". On the Earth, he starts out in the desert and meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet (A clever way to say that he can kill people, thus "Sending anyone he wishes back to the land from whence he came.") The prince meets a desert-flower, who, having seen a caravan pass by, tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, which lets the wind blow them around making life hard on them. The little prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen. From the top of the mountain, he hopes he will see the whole planet and find people, but he sees only a desolate, craggy landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of humans. He thinks Earth is unnecessarily sharp and hard, and he finds it odd that the people of Earth only repeat what he says to them.
Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and is downcast because he thought that his rose was the only one in the whole universe. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps.
Chapter 21: is the author's statement about human love in that the prince then meets and tames a fox, who explains to the prince that his rose is unique and special, because she is the one that he loves. He also explains that in a way he has tamed the flower, as it has tamed him, and that this is why he now feels responsible for it.
Chapter 22–23: The prince then meets a railway switchman and a merchant who provide further comments on the ridiculousness and absurdity of much of the human condition. The switchman tells the prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after, only the children amongst them bothering to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is therefore very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week; the prince replies that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water.
Chapter 24: the narrator's point of view changes again from third person to first person. The narrator is dying of thirst, but then he and the prince find a well. After some thought, the prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator, explaining to him that while it will look as though he has died, he has not, but rather that his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. He tells the narrator that it was wrong of the narrator to come and watch, as it will make him sad. The prince allows the snake to bite him and the next morning, when the narrator looks for the prince, he finds the boy's body has disappeared. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the meeting of the prince and the narrator took place and where the snake took the prince's life. The picture is deliberately vague but the narrator also makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.
The little prince is represented as having been on Earth for one year, and the narrator ends the story six years after he is rescued from the desert.
[edit] Inspiration
In The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry talks about being stranded in the desert beside a crashed aircraft. This account clearly draws on his own experience in the Sahara, an ordeal he described in detail in his book Wind, Sand and Stars.
On December 30, 1935 at 14:45, after 18 hours and 36 minutes in the air, Saint-Exupéry, along with his navigator André Prévot, crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert. They were attempting to break the record for the Paris-to-Saigon flight and win a prize of 150,000 francs. Their plane was a Caudron C-600 Simoun n° 7042 (serial F-ANRY). The crash site is thought to have been located in the Wadi Natrum. Both survived the crash, only to face rapid dehydration. Their maps were primitive and ambiguous. Lost in the desert with a few grapes, a single orange, and some wine, the pair had only one day's worth of liquid. After the first day, they had nothing. They both began to see mirages, which were quickly followed by more vivid hallucinations. Between the second and the third day, they were so dehydrated that they stopped sweating altogether. Finally, on the fourth day, a Bedouin on a camel discovered them and administered a native rehydration treatment that saved Saint-Exupéry and Prévot's lives.
In the desert, Saint-Exupéry had met a fennec (desert sand fox), which most likely inspired him to create the fox character in the book. In a letter written to his sister Didi from Cape Juby in 1918, he tells her about raising a fennec that he adored.
Patachou, Petit Garçon, by Tristan Derème, is another probable influence for The Little Prince.[citation needed]
Antoine may have drawn inspiration for the little prince's appearance from himself as a youth. Friends and family would call him "le Roi-Soleil" ("Sun King"), due to his golden curly hair.
The little prince's reassurance to the Pilot that his dying body is only an empty shell resembles the last words of Antoine's younger brother François: "Don't worry. I'm all right. I can't help it. It's my body" (Airman's Odyssey).
[edit] Translations
Translations exist in many languages. It is often used as a beginner's book for French language students.
Katherine Woods' classic English version (1943) was later joined by other English translations, as her original version was shown to have several mistakes.[3][4] As of 2009, four such additional translations[5] have been published:[update]
- T.V.F. Cuffe (ISBN 0-14-118562-7, 1st ed. 1995)
- Irene Testot-Ferry (ISBN 0-7567-5189-6, 1st ed. 1995)
- Alan Wakeman (ISBN 1-86205-066-X, 1st ed. 1995)
- Richard Howard (ISBN 0-15-204804-9, 1st ed. 2000)
Each of these translators approach the essence of the original, each with their own style and focus.[6][7]
Since its publication the book has been translated into over 180 languages, including Congolese and Sardinian. In 2005, the book was translated into Toba, an indigenous language of northern Argentina, as So Shiyaxauolec Nta'a. It was the first book translated into this language since the New Testament Bible. Anthropologist Florence Tola commenting on the suitability of the work for Toban translation said there was "nothing strange [in that] the Little Prince speaks with a snake or a fox and travel[s] among the stars, it fits perfectly to the Toba mythology."[8] The book is one of few modern books to be translated into Latin, as Regulus Vel Pueri Soli Sapiunt.[9][10]
[edit] Sequels
In 1997, Jean-Pierre Davidts wrote what could be considered a sequel to The Little Prince, entitled Le petit prince retrouvé[11] (The Little Prince Returns). In this version, the narrator is a shipwrecked man who encounters the little prince on a lone island; the prince has returned to find help against a tiger who threatens his sheep.[12]
Another sequel titled The Return of the Little Prince was written by former actress Ysatis de Saint-Simone, niece of Consuelo de Saint Exupery.[13]
In spring 2007, "Les nouvelles aventures du petit prince" (The New Adventures of the Little Prince), was written by Katherine Pardue and Elisabeth Mitchell. It documents the search of a new flower for the little prince, because the sheep had eaten his rose.
[edit] Legacy
[edit] Astronomy
In 2003, a small asteroid moon, Petit-Prince (discovered in 1998), was named after The Little Prince. An asteroid discovered in 1993, 46610 Bésixdouze, which is French for "B six twelve", is a reference to the work. The asteroid's number, 46610, when converted from decimal to hexadecimal notation, is B612. B612 was the name of the asteroid the little prince lived on. A 1975 asteroid discovery, 2578 Saint-Exupéry, was named after the author of The Little Prince.
[edit] Museums and numismatics
There is The Museum of The Little Prince in Hakone, Japan, featuring outdoor squares and sculptures like the B 612 Asteroid, the Lamplighter Square, and a sculpture of the little prince. In the grounds, there is a large Little Prince Park: The Consuelo Rose Garden. But the main part of the museum is its indoor exhibition. Before France adopted the Euro as its currency, Saint-Exupéry and the little prince were on her 50 Franc banknote; the artwork was by SwissLe Petit Prince, visible with a strong magnifying glass.[14] designer Roger Pfund. Among the anticounterfeiting measures on the banknote was micro-printed text from
In Gyeonggi-do, Korea, there is a French village (Petite France) that has adapted the story into the architecture and monuments. There are many sculptures of the characters, and it offers overnight housing in some of the French-style homes. Some exhibits feature the history of the Little Prince, and a chicken art gallery. A small amphitheatre is situated in the middle of the village for musicians and other performances. Visitors can also see where a famous Korean drama (Beethoven Virus) used a room as Kang Ma-Eh's office.[15][16]
The original autograph manuscript of The Little Prince is held by the Pierpont Morgan Library in Manhattan. The piece includes content that was struck through and therefore not published as part of the first edition. In addition to the autograph manuscript, several water colour illustrations by the author are held. They were not part of the first edition.
[edit] Adaptations
Main article: List of The Little Prince adaptations
Saint-Exupéry's novella has been adapted to various media over the decades. Richard BurtonRiccardo Cocciante produced a French-language musical Le Petit Prince, which was later revived in Hong Kong, 2007.[17][18] Russian operatic composer Lev Knipper wrote a 3-part symphony in 1962–71, his skazka (‘tale’) entitled Malen′kiy prints (‘The Little Prince’), which was first performed in Moscow in 1978.[19] In film and television, Loewe and lyricist Lerner, together with director Stanley Donen, produced a film musical based on the story for Paramount PicturesThe Adventures of the Little Prince, a Japanese anime series, was televised in Japan and North America.[20][21][22] narrated a Grammy Award winning recording in 1974 and, in 2002, composer in 1974, and, during the 1980s,
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Miyerkules, Setyembre 16, 2009
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