LITERATURE

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LITTLE PRINCE

children's book or primer for life?

By Tony Zhang

A Strange and Beautiful Little Book

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry is one of the most famous children’s books in the world. It has sold 200 million copies. You can read it in the original French, or English, or Chinese, or Korean, or Swahili; it is everywhere. And yet when you actually read the book it is one of the strangest and oddest stories, not to mention children’s books, you could ever imagine. In fact, except for the fact that it is plainly written, it seems more like a piece of philosophy than a children’s book. The overall story is quite easy to follow, but each section is almost a primer on a different type of idea that Saint Exupéry is fascinated with or interested in. And so I’m going to go through the book and talk about individual moments that really have the power of philosophy and go beyond the logic and structure of a normal children’s book.

1.

Is a boa constrictor able to swallow an elephant? That’s the question I would probably never ask, but the book starts there. It is not just a striking beginning to the story, but a way for Saint Exupéry to push us into a more philosophical frame of mind.

Think about it

This section begins with the child-aviator drawing a silhouette of a boa that has an elephant in its stomach. To the adults, the silhouette of a snake with a big belly is a mistake. Instead of being intrigued by this show of imagination, they advise him to “apply [himself] to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.” This little story is a metaphor on how parents can restrict a child’s imagination. For Saint-Exupéry, the imagination is the most powerful ability we have and it motivates us to explore and create.

As we grow older, we become more objective and less inclined to listen to the wild ideas that are bursting in our brains. We cease to ask questions. Saint-Exupéry wants to remind everyone who picks up Le Petit Prince that they should read with a sense of imagination, no matter whether they are a child or an adult. The elephant inside the boa constrictor is really a test: can you see it or not. If you can’t, well, maybe this story isn’t for you, but if you can, then maybe you’ll be open to the ideas that St. Exupéry is interested in.

So, the first thing St. Exupéry makes us understand is that we are going to have to make choices about where we stand: with the imagination or with practicality.

2.

Another powerful idea in the book concerns how we love. In the middle of the twenty-first chapter, the fox asks the little prince to tame him. I can’t tell you how enjoyable this exchange is and how profound I find it, but I can try and so, well, here it goes. The Fox points out to the Little Prince that any interaction they have creates further ties and obligations:

For you I’m only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me. I’ll be the only fox in the world for you.

The bond between the little prince and the Fox simply goes beyond the relationship between pets and owners. Love, which exists in many forms, can not be simply defined as what we feel, but something like invisible ropes that connect one another. The rope that the Little Prince and the Fox create is friendship, but that friendship is connected by the ability to recognize the needs and desires of others.

We have obligations to one and other

From the first sentence they speak, the Prince and the Fox are unconsciously making an agreement with one another and promising to treat each other with care. The fact that Saint-Exupéry gives an animal like a fox humanity allows readers to imagine equivalent relationships between characters and by extension other people. In this section, we again see the philosophical reach of this so-called children’s book. Saint-Exupéry gives us a philosophy of how we relate to one other and I’m sure that part of the book’s success has to do with how humane and caring that philosophy is.

It is really about the process of giving and receiving and how that occurs on an emotional and physical level. Saint-Exupéry wants his readers to rethink how they relate to people and the world around them. Or as the Prince says, “He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I have made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world.

The beauty of what the Prince says helps us to understand the idea of a bond and our willingness to accept the responsibility of the bonds that come our way. From nothing to something and from anyone to someone. It is amazing how love works.

3.

The Little Prince stops at a few planets and meets many different people before his arrival of earth. He meets a king who selfishly thinks he reigns over everything, a business man who only knows how to make money, a person who cares only about his own vanity, and an alcoholic who only knows how to get drunk again and again. However, the lamplighter who lives on the fifth planet impresses the Little Prince because he is the only person who is “thinking of something beside himself."

At least his work has some meaning. When he lights his lamp, it’s as if he’s bringing one more star to life. Or one more flower. When he puts out his lamp, that sends the flower or the star to sleep. Which is a fine occupation. And therefore truly useful.

When we are young, the question of what we’re going to do when we grow is a constant reminder that we will grow up and we will have to make decisions. The normal answers are an astronaut, a scientist, a businessman, and whatever adults consider good professions. Indeed, being an astronaut or a scientist have a great deal to offer humanity. But none of them are truly necessary for us. We can survive and have a happy life without advanced technology.

It is strange to think that Saint-Exupéry was thinking of this in the 1920’s before the tech revolution. Our society is only moving forward because of people like farmers or doctors or the lamplighter. They make sure our society is in order and maintain the care and needs of others.

Someone must do the work

I think Saint-Exupéry is trying to break the standard by which people judge the value and meaning of various jobs by prestige. We simply assign great achievements to the great ones, and discard everyone else to the side. Saint-Exupéry wants to remind us that because those people are doing the ordinary jobs, we are more likely to have a chance to think achieve our own dreams.

The lamplighter lights up the lamp at sunrise and dim it at sunset. His job isn’t great, but it is essential to our lives. And we definitely need more people like him to selflessly go about their tasks.

4.

One of the intriguing concepts in the story of Le Petit Prince is hiding behind the wonderful encounter between the Aviator and the Little Prince. On the eighth day after his crash in the desert, the Aviator is running out of water. As he and the Little Prince search for a well, he suddenly understands the beauty of the well is its invisibility in the desert. The Little Prince says, “what makes the desert beautiful is that it hides a well somewhere.”

Here he is, the man behind the Prince

Saint-Exupéry condenses the essence of life in this chapter. What is the well for you in your life. Things are more likely beautiful and attractive when we don’t own or achieve them. They are always in the form of people’s description or imagery. They are the wells that we try to imagine: its taste, its feeling, or the happiness we achieve when we finally see it.

Le Petit Prince is a book that people can read in different stages of life. It is a journey where we realize we have been rushed in life and forget to think about the what is the essence of life. The book will slow it down; it will give us a break and make sure we stay far away from a world of meaningless show and enter a world of true worth.

©Tony Zhang and the CCA Arts Review