The Little Prince

     I first read “The Little Prince” by Antoine De Saint-Exupery when I was in the elementary school. I just regard it as a normal story just like other fairy tales and I thunk that it is a little boring story. But recently, I read this novel again and I have extremely different thought about it. “The Little Prince” was originally published in 1943 and it is one of the most popular books in the world having been translated into more than 250 languages and selling over 140 million copies. It is one of the best-selling novels ever published.

     The novella tells the story of the narrator, a pilot who has crashed in the Sahara Desert and the Little Prince, whom he meets while trying to repair his plane. With only 8 days of water, the pilot is approached by “The Little Prince”, a curly-headed, blond child who claims that he comes from another planet and never answers direct questions from the narrator. The little prince’s planet is very small, occupied by 3 volcanoes, some plants,and the dangerous “baobabs” which if he unchecked, can over-run the planet,and he takes great care of his planet. One day, a mysterious rose sprouted on the planet and the little prince fell in love with it. But when he caught the rose in a lie one day, he decided that he could not trust her anymore. He grew lonely and decided to leave.

     He set out to explore other planets and cure his loneliness. In his journey, passes by neighboring asteroids and encounters for the first time the strange, narrow-minded world of grown-ups. On the first six planets the little prince visits, he comes across a king with no subjects, a business man who only cares for numbers, a drunkard, a lamp-lighter whose planet is so small he is constantly turning the singular lamp off and on and a geographer, all of whom live alone and are consumed by the occupations which they had chosen. Such strange behavior confuse him, he does not understand their need to order people around, to be admired, and to own everything. The little prince does not think much of the adults which he had visited, and he does not learn anything useful. However, he learns from the geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss the rose he has left behind. Eventually, the little prince finds a rose garden, which surprises him and depresses him—his rose had told him that she was the only one of her kind.

     His friend, a fox, who told him that the important things in life are visible only to the heart, that his time away from the rose makes the rose more special to him, and you become responsible forever for what you have tamed. The book ends with the Little Prince deciding to go home in a very dramatic way, leaving the narrator, once again, with the wonder of childhood and the ability to hear laughter in the stars.

    Although it looks really shallow, it actually has some really deep lessons where in not only the children can relate but also the adults.it helps me to recall beautiful memories. Maybe we are all the little prince when we are young, but now we have lost this ability because there are many important things which adults never mind it.

I think I will read this book time and time again, and each time I read it, its message becomes more meaningful as ever. It is a book I can read it on the every stage of my life and hope that I can keep the faith like the little prince.

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