Dany JacobENG 658 : Word & ImageDr. D. TedlockFinal Paper

Le Petit Prince - “Not for grownups”?!

Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince is one of the

world’s most distributed books, being translated in over

hundred languages and interpreted in all medias possible

(movies, animation, theatre, etc.) – yet, it is still

classified as a children’s book. While the adult world is

preoccupied with “serious” matters and issues, who can

imagine that such a small, illustrated booklet could

possibly explain and relate to the those big questions

that need long, rational reasoning. Although this seems

to be a commonly accepted phenomenon, if this kind of

truth is not illusionary but the “real thing”, it offers

only a poor understanding of the whole situation at hand

and seems quite unsatisfactory if we may consider the

vast literature on every possible aspect. To

“intellectualize” the different aspects of life in Le Petit

Prince seems to be the wrong approach since the author

reveals the secret of life to us by a simple phrase: “On

ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux/ One

can only see well with the heart. The essential is

invisible to the eye”1.

The major difficulty with this work is to categorize

it as a specific genre and to label it correctly. By its

mere looks/form, we might feel pressed to classify the

novel under the notion of “tale”. It is quite short, the

writing style is simplistic and pure, using very easy

vocabulary; and then you add a first person narration and

simple illustrations through out the book you get a “by

the book” definition of a children’s book. In the

dedication, the author apologizes to the children to have

dedicated this text to a grownup, to his friend Léon

Werth. Right from the start, the entire work has the

print of this adult/child confrontation since Saint

Exupéry suits his choice by offering a four-step

“serious” argumentation: 1. It is the author’s best

friend in the world, 2. This grown up can understand

everything, even children’s books, 3. This grownup lives

in France where he is hungry and cold and thus in need of

reinsurance and finally 4. If that is not convincing

enough, he dedicates the book to Werth when he was a1 All translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

child. The question can be raised: does the age define

necessarily if you are a child or a grownup?

Contrary to common perception, this dedication is the

key to Saint Exupéry’s work, telling the reader, be it a

child or a grownup, that the seriousness of adulthood

will come in the way to fully understand the message.

This point of view can be justified by the fact the

narration actually starts out with an illustration and

not with text. Indeed, the “hat illusion” acts a prologue

and, although it will seem unimportant first, it will

reveal itself key to the understanding of the intern

structure of the story.

Certainly this discussion is raised on the grounds of

the important presence of the illustrations in the text,

as well as the direct directions to them. As a reader,

you just might fall into that illusion and just stay

stuck on the surface of things instead of questioning the

inside, the connoted, and the unexpressed, as the author

states:

“It is not through the path of language that I

transmit what is in me. What is in me, there are no

words to express it. ‘The most important is invisible

to the eye’, the reader has to know how to see what

the words show him, but also how to detect the

invisible to not miss the moral experience. ‘The work

of a writer, like the work of any artist, is the

progression more or less bothersome, more or less

fast, from silence to expression.’ ”

The illustrations are important, they are an active

source of knowledge in the spreading of the message the

narrator has for the readers (both grownup and child) and

it should not be discarded lightly. De Saint Exupéry was

a big doodler, the figure of the little prince appears

repeatedly on napkins, letterheads, menus, dedications,

envelops, or even in the midst of mathematical equations

and it seems to be a natural activity to the authors

mind, just like writing. Although he had Bernard Lamotte

illustrate his former novel Pilote de guerre, he did not seem

convinced by the artist’s realistic examples and decided

therefore to do the illustrations himself. The pictures,

perfectly integrated miniatures but contrary to

traditional children books, stand outside of the regular

status of decorum. There are not simply illustrations,

they are in contrary the centre of the text and cannot be

just put aside (in both senses). The text comes after the

picture, as a legend, explaining the importance of its

presence in the book. It is the text that illustrates the

image. We can see multiple instances where the text

directly refers to the picture: the hat/boa confusion,

the little prince’s portrait and at the end, the final

scenery. In all those cases, the text does not give any

description of the matter; we will not find a description

of the boa, not of the little prince nor of the last

scene. The picture is mightier than the word.

Thus, the story opens up on a series of three

pictures, in the first chapter:

But by themselves they do not make any sense. It is in

its integrity that the narrator gets to make a point across

and educate the reader:

I

“Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificentpicture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, aboutthe primeval forest. It was a picture of a boaconstrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Hereis a copy of the drawing.In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow theirprey whole, without chewing it. After that they arenot able to move, and they sleep through the sixmonths that they need for digestion."I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of thejungle. And after some work with a coloured pencil Isucceeded in making my first drawing. My DrawingNumber One. It looked something like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and askedthem whether the drawing frightened them.But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one befrightened by a hat?"My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was apicture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.But since the grown-ups were not able to understandit, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of aboa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see itclearly. They always need to have things explained.My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise meto lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whetherfrom the inside or the outside, and devote myselfinstead to geography, history, arithmetic, andgrammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave upwhat might have been a magnificent career as apainter. I had been disheartened by the failure of myDrawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and itis tiresome for children to be always and foreverexplaining things to them...”(9-10)

After reading this first chapter, the reader understands

the narrator’s frustration with the grownup world and its

limited perspective on the world; thus the dedication

must be seen in a different angle, according to Laurent

de Galembert (La Grandeur du Petit Prince, 2001, 35): 1. The

book is dedicated to a grownup, how will children accept

it? (starting point) 2. This grownup is my best friend (first

excuse) 3. This grownup understands even children’s books

(second excuse) 4. This grownup suffers (third excuse) 5. This

grownup has been a child and remembers it (forth excuse) 6.

The narrator dedicates this book to the child that the

grownup has been (arriving point). The enigma around the

dedication makes sense now, the term “serious” is a key

word from the very start. The narrator’s argumentation is

based on a “serious” excuse, as serious as the rational

subjects grownups recommended to the young narrator. This

first chapter sets the mood of the entire work, but the

narrator concludes on the perception that he stayed a

little kid inside among all the grownups:

“Whenever I met one of them [grownups] who seemed to

me a bit clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of

showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have

always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was

a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was,

he, or she, would always say: "That is a hat." Then I

would never talk to that person about boa

constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would

bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him

about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties.

And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met

such a sensible man.” (11)

It is important to notice the emphasis on “seemed to

me” and the importance of the test leading to a “true

understanding” of reality. After this conclusion, the

reader understands the “pact” made during the dedication

that only a innocent and imaginative mentality can

accurately reveal the truth of things, meaning of images.

While this idea is germinating in the reader’s mind, the

second chapter strikes us with another set of pictures:

the portrait of the little prince and the sheep. The

description of the breakdown of the narrator’s plane in

the Sahara desert, the main character interrupts by a

simple request: “Please… Draw me a sheep!” This

interruption does not inly surprise both reader and

narrator because of the strange fact that there is anyone

else in the Sahara desert but because of the peculiar

request of drawing. Startled by his presence, the narrator

refers to a visual description of the little prince by

stating:

“Here you may see the best portrait that,later, I was able to make of him. But mydrawing is certainly very much lesscharming than its model. That, however, isnot my fault. The grown-ups discouraged mein my painter's career when I was six years

old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boasfrom the outside and boas from the inside.” (12)

There is no other description throughout the tale of the

little prince available, except some references to his

golden hair. Only the picture permits to give an

extensive description that can satisfy the reader, so it

seems in the narrator’s eyes. This particular portrait

reminds us a lot of the royal portraits done in the 18th

Century; de Galembert notices a strange resemblance with

Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud (Louis XIV, roy de France, 1701):

The attitude is the same; the typical pose of royal

portraits imposes the character depicted. Both arte

draped in a big coat and hold a sword, emblematic symbol

of war and both of them are wearing colours of the

nobility: gold, red and blue as well as the white dress,

suggesting purity. However there is a difference in those

portraits, mainly the lush taste that is present in Louis

XIV’s portrait does not appear in the little prince’s. De

Galembert explains that after all, it is a little prince and

thus it is natural that this portrait has more

spontaneity and invokes more sympathy than the mighty

King Louis XIV.

However, we can be confused by the dichotomy in the

little prince’s representation. We have to admit that the

features are minimal, authorizing imagination to fill in

the gaps, but more importantly we notice the clear choice

of the first introduction of the character through a

formal illustration while during the book, the little

prince will not have that attire any more. Indeed, the

little prince, on the cover and on the first couple

pages, is represented in a much more simpler way:

first impression vs. first page vs.

during the book

The questions can be raised if the narrator is not

trying to influence the reader’s mind and first

impression skills by officially announcing the little

prince in his formal attire, acting thus as an argument of

authority to increase the veracity and the importance of

the message in the book.

The second graphic opportunity is the series of drawn

sheep. As emblematic as the sentence “Please…Draw me a

sheep” is, it represents, I believe, the core of the book

itself. As we have seen earlier, the pure act of drawing

is one of the focus points in this work; thus the first

reference can only be understood in relation to the

second instance. Indeed, in the process of satisfying the

little prince’s desire of a drawn sheep, the narrator,

who “only knew to draw boas from the outside and the

inside”(14) – that the little prince recognizes! – is

drawn outside of his familiar environment and gives in to

the request. The series of four pictures shows the ludic

way the authors shows the power images have on the

observer and how much not only subjectivity (the own way

to interpret and “see” a picture) but also the universal

features a picture can evoke within the outside observer.

Indeed, in general, we all agree that Bacon’s paintings

are grotesque, whether we think his work is sublime or

not. This is not an issue of judging the essence of the

picture, but rather to understand the essence, to “see”

it, so to speak. The core of that particular point is

thus expressed in a series of different illustrations

included in the text but then again, the text acts as a

direct reference to the illustration:

Once again, the picture by themselves have no other

meaning, they do not evoke anything particular to us; they

are all three sheep seen from a different perspective,

different styles, etc. But once we add in the (minimal)

text, the meaning of the illustrations changes our point of

view and connects the first chapter to this one2 :

“’Draw me a sheep.’So then I made a drawing.

He looked at it carefully, thenhe said:

"No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make meanother."

So I made another drawing.

2 I have put the pictures next to the text that refers to it, in thebook itself however the pictures are distributed on both sides acrossof the page, not demarking any particular order.

My friend smiled gently and indulgently."You see yourself," he said, "that this is not asheep. This is a ram. It has horns."

So then I did my drawing overonce more.But it was rejected too, justlike the others."This one is too old. I want a

sheep that will live a long time."

By this time my patience wasexhausted, because I was in a hurryto start taking my engine apart. So Itossed off this drawing.

And I threw out an explanationwith it."This is only his box. The sheepyou asked for is inside."

I was very surprised to see a light break over theface of my young judge:

"That is exactly the way I wantedit!” (14)

The “obvious” solution of the grownup to satisfy the

child’s desire is to give it an unlimited source of

imagination. The narrator is surprised at the little

prince’s reaction since it seems totally unacceptable to a

grownup to not fulfil one’s desire to the letter (“I asked

for a sheep, ergo I want to see a sheep and nothing else”).

We see that this anecdote is in the same spirit as the

first chapter: both scenes talk about pictures that are

drawn, it is all about what they really represent, what is

“inside” of them – the boa and the elephant are not

recognized until the explanatory Number Two because the

outer shape does not allow to transmit the inner truth; the

perfect sheep for the prince is inside a box, hiding from

everybody the sheep’s initial shape and form.

“[…] I have made a drawingof that planet. I do notmuch like to take the toneof a moralist. But thedanger of baobabs is solittle understood […] thatfor once I am breakingthrough my reserve.“Children,” I say plainly,“watch out for baobabs!” Itis to warn my friends of adanger that they areskirting for so long, like myself, without everknowing it; and so it is for them that I haveworked so hard over this drawing. The lesson which I passon by this means is worth all the trouble it has cost me. Perhapsyou will ask me: “Why are there no other drawingsin this book as magnificent and impressive as thisdrawing of the baobabs?” The reply is simple. Ihave tried. But with the others I have not beensuccessful. When I made the drawing of the baobabsI was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgentnecessity.” (24) (We underline)

We find here again the matter of a “serious” problem;

a concern of ”urgency” that he cannot spare to share- the

illustration takes the same importance a picture would in a

science book where you can recognize a plant species that

is harmful for existence. Naturally, the presence of the

baobabs represents a threat to the little prince’s planet

but it seems to have very little importance for people on

Earth- despite what the narrator wants to make us believe.

However, we can see behind the “seriousness” of the matter

a more sophisticated way to introduce an important message

by the little prince. While making sure his new adopted

sheep would also eat baobabs since they eat bushes, the

narrator is surprised and explains that “baobabs are not

bushes, but big trees like churches and that even against a

heard of elephants, it would not come to the end of one

single baobab”(22), to which the little prince,

“wisely”(22), replies: “Baobabs, before growing, start out

small”. Without a doubt, we can draw a parallel with the

opening speech the author lays upon us, putting an emphasis

on the mere fact that everything big and tall starts out

small first.

Finally, the last direct reference to the illustration

is the last illustration of the book. Indeed, the story

ends the same way it started; with a picture. The ending

itself is very powerful since it rests on the principle of

comparing to different illustration on two successive

pages:

page 92 page 94

The effect of this comparison, pushing the reader to

flip back and forth, stresses the disappearance of the main

character from Earth, the visual emptiness expresses the

real emptiness the narrators feels by witnessing the loss

of his dear friend. Nonetheless, this effect is not let

alone by being on a single page, contrasting with the text

before, but there is also an ending caption, in the same

typeface and format as the opening dedication. It is a

direct comment on the last illustration:

“This is, for me, the most beautiful and the saddest

landscape in the world. It is the same landscape

than on the previous page, but I drew it once more

to show it to you. It is here that the little prince

appeared on Earth, then disappeared.

Look carefully at this landscape so you are certain

to recognize it, if you travel one day in Africa,

through the desert. And, if you pass by this place,

I beg of you, do not hurry, wait a bit under the

star! If a child comes to you, if he laughs, if he

has golden hair, if he does not reply when you ask

him something, you will guess that it is him. Then

be nice! Do not let me here so sad: write to me that

he came back…”(96)

The impact the text and the picture combined has on the

reader is of deep affect, we feel sorry for the narrator

and, since we grew fond of the little guy, we are compelled

to look out into the sky to look for a star and hope he is

safe and sound. By those two captions, author ad narrator

become one and the same entity, giving the narrator a

physical (although not real) presence in the “real” world

and thus giving the entire book a more “convincing”

probability.

Throughout the entire book, the narrator refers to his

own illustrations, justifying himself as good as possible,

and giving the text colors, shape and forms that seem to be

futile through the dry use of words. Naturally, the rest of

the book is sprinkled with colorful and ingenious

illustrations, underlining the text by giving a closer and

more accurate visualization of the narration. The different

illustrations of the planets the little prince visits

before meeting the narrator play that particular role of

pictorial filling of information; each illustration points

out a specific odd feature the little prince encounters and

is confused about. The text itself gives a fair simple

description of each planet and its resident and it is

unlikely to think that the pictures are meant to show more

than the text already expresses previously. Here are, in

chorological order, the different planets and the

residents, all representing a specific flaw of modern

society:

Through a sequence of seven planets, the little prince

experiences Life outside of his home planet and meets with

different stereotypes that embody, in retrospective, the

particular features that define adults still in today’s

society. Hence, the first planet is inhabited by a king.

The text goes on indicating the simplicity of the

character’s robe, the small size of the planet itself.

Throughout the dialogue with the main character, the reader

is made aware that this particular monarch has principal

issues with his status: being king, he “insisted upon that

his authority should be respected. He tolerated no

disobedience. But because he was a very good man, he made

his orders reasonable” (37) (We underline). Let’s notice here

that the argument of reason comes back; we cannot pass the

occasion not to associate the power status of the king with

the figure of absolute wise philosopher as head of a

nation, as it is stated by Plato. Bragging about his

almighty power, the king confuses the direct perception of

“absolute” and the possible absolute, thus when the boy

asks for a sundown, his request is denied:

“’If I ordered a general to fly from one flower toanother like a butterfly, or to write a tragicdrama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and ifthe general did not carry out the order that he hadreceived, which one of us would be in the wrong?’the king demanded. ‘The general, or myself?’‘You,’ said the little prince firmly.

‘Exactly. One must require from each one the dutywhich each one can perform,’ the king went on.‘Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. Ifyou ordered your people to go and throw themselvesinto the sea, they would rise up in revolution. Ihave the right to require obedience because myorders are reasonable.’” (39, 40)

The conclusion of this visit results in the explanation

of the ambivalence of being in power and the exercise of

the so-called power. We could argue that the figure of the

king does not resemble any classic representation of a

royal figure as we might have seen before, or even compared

to the official portrait made in chapter II. Through the

visual media, the artist clarifies the down side of this

“powerful” king by representing him disheartened.

Chapter XI is rather short; the character of

the conceited man makes a clear point form the

beginning. Demanding constant one-way attention,

the reader is made aware of the lack of

communication and sharing of mutual consideration. The

artist expresses the man in the center of his minuscule

planet (in more than just the literary context), even

covering the sun, which is after all the center of the

universe.

The third stop, even shorter, ends up in a never-

ending syllogism of a cause – consequence-

chain. The tippler drinks because he wants

to forget that he is ashamed of drinking.

This statement is formulated in four different

question/answer-dialogues with the little boy; before he is

surrounded by the tippler’s mutism.

In Chapter XII, the narrator points

out modern society in its pure

flourishing: the businessman. Again, in

this particular dialogue, main

references are made that can be mostly understood through

the opening dedication and the first chapters. The emphasis

is here brought to the importance of numbers. Only numbers

count for the businessman, he sees his life, his

achievements, his possessions only and solely in numbers

hence the compulsive behavior to count the stars every

night in order to “own” them. The “seriousness” of his job,

of his being that is, is constantly repeated in “I am

serious person” that come up several times, elliptically,

into the conversation. Interesting is the fact that the

narration seems to cumulate the first three visits into

this particular character. Naturally, the little prince,

not knowing anything outside of his home planet, only has

those three visits are reference points, but the reader

shares the same experience as well since they recently

witnessed it. In this dialogue, the crossing brings a

different dimension to the light:

“‘Five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one. I amserious, I am accurate.’‘And what do you do with these stars?’‘What do I do with them?’‘Yes.’‘Nothing. I own them.’‘You own the stars?’‘Yes.’‘But I have already seen a king who…’‘Kings do not own, they reign over. It is a verydifferent matter.’‘And what good does it do you to own the stars?’‘It does me the good of making me rich.’‘And what good does it do you to be rich?’‘It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, ifany are discovered.’‘This man,’ the little prince said to himself,‘reasons a little like my poor tippler . . .’Nevertheless, he still had some more questions.‘How is it possible for one to own the stars?’‘To whom do they belong?’ the businessman retorted,peevishly.‘I don't know. To nobody.’‘Then they belong to me, because I was the firstperson to think of it.’[…]‘And what do you do with them?’

‘I administer them,’ replied the businessman. ‘Icount them and recount them. It is difficult. But Iam a serious man.’” (47, 48)

In this dialogue, the three figures appear and make a

point towards what the businessman’s being is. Obviously, to

him, he is better than the king since he actually owns the

stars, but his reasoning strangely echoes with the

tippler’s syllogism. The whole egocentric attitude mends

the different parts together making the businessman as a

complete entity: a serious guy with serious matters and

occupations. Nothing is more important than his job; the

picture itself represents him on his desk, crunching

numbers and nothing else, there is not a global perspective

of the planet like we have seen before.

Not satisfied by his visits, his next stop would

suppose a relief in his quest to find a being with a

purpose, a use:

“It may well be that this man isabsurd. But he is not so absurd asthe king, the conceited man, thebusinessman, and the tippler. For atleast his work has some meaning.When he lights his street lamp, itis as if he brought one more star tolife, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, hesends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a

beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, itis truly useful.” (49, 50)

Being the smallest planet of them all” (49), this

individual character forms one of the most ironic scenes.

Again, accumulating the previous visits, like a genetic of

the text, the lamplighter appears to have a meaning to his

existence: to light the lamp when it is dark and put it out

when the sun rises. Yet, it is a “terrible profession. In

the old days it was reasonable. […] From year to year the

planet has turned more rapidly and the orders have not been

changed. […] The planet now makes a complete turn every

minute, and [he] no longer ha[s] a single second for rest.

Once every minute [the lamplighter] ha[s] to light [his]

lamp and put it out!” (50) Pushed into the same lifestyle

as the businessman, the lamplighter falls into the same

patterns as the latter and it renders his existence useless;

the entire purpose of the profession loses its essence.

Approaching the end of this quest, chapter XV opens up

the chapters for Earth with the figure of the geographer.

Here again, we have an echo made to the first chapter where

the narrator explicitly recalls the importance of geography

as a serious matter that he should follow instead of an

artistic career, a matter that “actually came in quite

handy” (10) when you are lost, flying at night.

The geographer defines his

profession as “ a scholar who knows

the location of all the seas, rivers,

towns, mountains, and desert” (53).

Convinced of this “real profession” (53), the geographer

turns out to be only a chimeric scholar who has no

practical knowledge of his own planet since it is not his

job, it is the explorer’s job. The difference between those

two entities is simple: “The geographer is much too

important to go loafing around. He never leaves his study.

But he receives explorers in his study” (54). The key words

here “too important” dig the difference of perception of

importance and actual priorities. Just like the

businessman, the geographer is depicted curved over his

desk, paging a book. Although his planet is vast and big,

the artist does not represent any of it; we are here in

presence again of a very focused point, as focused as the

geographer himself.

The other point the geographer makes is breaking in

the ideas of “eternal” and “ephemeral”; two concepts that

will break the little prince’s spirit with the truth of

reality. His final stop is thus Earth, recommended by the

geographer since it has a “good reputation” (57). Final

step for the prince but also final step for the reader to

digest the different sides of utilitarian essences of

being, to which the narrator responds in this following

way:

“Earth is not just any planet! There are hundred

and eleven kings (without forgetting the black

kings of course), seven thousand geographers, nine

hundred thousand businessmen, seven million and a

half tipplers, three hundred eleven million

conceited people, so approximately two billion of

grownups.

To give you an idea about the dimensions of Earth,

I will tell you that before the invention of

electricity there were, on the entire six

continents, a true army of four hundred sixty two

thousand five hundred eleven lamplighters.”(58)

Before even considering the rest of the text, we are

again confronted to a series of numbers, facts as they

were, about the reality and figuration of Earth. This fancy

of numbers, of “serious” facts forms elliptic references to

the first chapter but as well as to exclusive visits to the

businessman and the geographer. Is the narrator falling in

the same trap he is trying to avoid? Is he intentionally

talking in “grownup” speech to convince the adult

supervisors out there?

The little prince’s first impression of Earth is the

desert- human wasteland where the only living being he

comes in contact with is the snake. To his question “Where

are the people? It is lonely in the desert…” the snake,

like the wise, offers a counterpart: “It is also lonely

amongst the people too.”

We can so far conclude that the visual media is an

important component of the narrative, if not as a direct

reference to avoid long and boring descriptions of all kind

of sceneries or people then as revealing illustrations. The

latter seem to operate like a science book where the text

brings up all the information and the picture is used as a

visual aid, to support the argumentation. But in this

particular text there are pictures that illustrate

“visually” again certain issues, exploited in the text,

that the main character makes appear by being as innocent

as he is, and there are also pictures that do not observe

this specific utility; they seem to simply exist for the

beauty to illustrate the narrative. There are three more

instances where the illustrations seem to point out,

pictorially, key elements of the narrative: 1. the controversy

on “L’habit ne fait pas le moine / Don’t judge a book by its

cover”; 2. The solitude of humans; and 3. The theory of

taming.

Chapter IV, in the light of the boa constrictor and the

sheep, tries to retrace the little prince’s origin. The

narrator, to be as precise as possible, “seriously

believe[s] the little prince’s home planet is asteroid B

612” (19). Probably anticipating the children’s natural

curiousness of the little prince’s origin, the narrator

exposes the circumstances this specific asteroid has been

discovered and what problems that occurred:

“This asteroid has only once beenseen through the telescope. Thatwas by a Turkish astronomer, in1909.On making his discovery, the

astronomer had presented it to the InternationalAstronomical Congress, in a great demonstration.But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody wouldbelieve what he said. Grownups are like that.Fortunately, however, for the reputation ofAsteroid B 612, a Turkish dictatormade a law that his subjects, underpain of death, should change toEuropean costume. So in 1920 theastronomer gave his demonstration all over again,dressed with impressive style and elegance. Andthis time everybody accepted his report.”

Now, the ironic situation is pretty straightforward and

requires little precision, except visually. Indeed,

although the text does not refer directly to the

illustrations, the narrator presents us with a “before” and

“after” of this Turkish astronomer, the irony residing that

it is exactly the same pose, the same picture but the

costume is different, as you can observe it above. Still,

the question remains why the narrator insists on these

facts. He justifies it that way:

“If I have told you these details about the

asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it

is on account of the grownups and their ways. When

you tell them that you have made a new friend, they

never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never

say to you, ‘What does his voice sound like? What

games does he love best? Does he collect

butterflies?’ Instead, they demand: ‘How old is he?

How many brothers does he have? How much does he

weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only

from these figures do they think they have learned anything about

him. If you were to tell the grownups: ‘I saw a

beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums

in the windows and doves on the roof,’ they would

not be able to get any idea of that house at all.

You would have to say to them: ‘I saw a house that

cost $20,000.’ Then they would exclaim: ‘Oh, what a

pretty house that is!’” (19, 20) (We underline)

Indeed, he concludes that his desire is to take this

book seriously (20) and against his wish, he could not

start this story like any regular fairy tale by an “Once

upon a time…” although, for “ [...] those who understand

life, that would have given a much greater air of truth to

it” (20).

The narrator explains that his illustrations come in

different forms and colours, since his memory is not

certain. Indeed, we are presented with very colourful

pictures; some are simply black and white.

This one, however, brings out the two modes

of representation: the little prince is “in

colour” while his surroundings are in grey

shades. On top of the mountain, still on the quest to

discover humans, he is amazed of the height and believes

that from the top he could see the entire planet and all

humans, but all he sees sharp mountain tops. (63) Trying to

communicate, his questions are simply repeated by the echo,

brining the little prince to the conclusion: “What a weird

planet this is! […] It is all dry, and all pointy and all

salty. And humans lack in imagination. They repeat what

they are told…”(64). The solitude of the main character is

emphasized by the isolation of his representation and the

mountains, the white blank offering an opening to the

unknown.

Finally, the heart of the book is the encounter with

the fox that teaches the

little prince the most valuable lesson he could possible

need, his secret of life: “On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel

est invisible pour les yeux” (72). There are many other lessons

given by the fox (believed to be the representation of

Saint Exupéry himself) but it is mostly know for the theory

of taming. Indeed, “one only knows what one tames” (69)

since taming means to create connections between something

that had no meaning before and someone/something that has

an important value to the subject. His argumentation is

like follows: wheat has no meaning to fox, since it does

not need bread. But after being tamed by the little prince,

the golden colour of wheat will always remind him of the

little boy and therefore wheat will hold a special place in

the fox’s point of view since there is an emotional

“investment”, an affective valuation. In a cyclic

construction, the little prince tames the fox and the

narrator. For the fox, wheat will forever be a reminder of

the time spent with the boy. Closer to the end of the book,

the narrator and the little prince share a wonderful

adventure involving water from a well. The water has a

“special taste” because of the hard work (friendship) and

the melody of the pulley: “This water was more than just a

nutriment. It was born from the march through the desert

beneath the stars, from the sing of the pulley, from the

effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, like a gift”

(81). For the two friends, this special experience enriched

their life with important discoveries about life and

themselves.

We have now considered all the elements of the

narrative, both text and illustrations but it does not tell

us concretely the purpose of such a symbiosis. The answer

lies within the text, once more, in a long justification

speech done by the narrator. He apologizes to the children

about his “grownup fashion” but after six years, details

seem too “flaky”. This try to tell us the little prince’s

story is a way to make sure he does not forget about him,

that he does not become “like the grownups that are only

interested in numbers” (21):

“It is for that purpose, again, that I have bought

a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to

take up drawing again at my age, when I have never

made any pictures except those of the boa

constrictor from the outside and the boa

constrictor from the inside, since I was six. I

shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life

as possible. But I am not at all sure of success.

One drawing goes along all right, and another has

no resemblance to its subject. I make some errors,

too, in the little prince's height: in one place he

is too tall and in another too short. And I feel

some doubts about the colour of his costume. So I

fumble along as best I can, sometimes good,

sometimes bad, and I hope generally fair-to-

middling. In certain more important details I shall

make mistakes, also. But that is something that

will not be my fault. My friend never explained

anything to me. He thought, perhaps, that I was

like him. But I, alas, do not know how to see sheep

through boxes. Perhaps I am a little like the grownups. I must

have grown old.” (21) (We underline)

The picture seems to be then as great of source of

truth, if not even bigger, as the text, since we are ought

to trust him on the veracity of this narrative. But the

truth of the illustrations seems to be irrefutable, since

they are a greater expression and a more direct

representation from the eye to the paper than words. In

basic linguistic, we are aware of the choice of words and

certain vocabulary and the entire difficulty of description

is to represent something it is whole into a linear

structure, the syntax. The process of ekphrasis is well know

to literary text that, by clever word choices, metaphors

and proper structure, gives back the illusion of browsing

the object visually while actually reading it. We can argue

that this particular option has been denied because it

would have made the narrative graver than was meant to be,

mostly a book “for grownups” instead of a book for

“everyone”. Another argument we can bring to this

discussion is the fox’s wise words: “Language is source of

misunderstandings” (69). Since language, and therefore

words and text, are a source of misunderstandings, it makes

sense that the narrator resorts to imagery to bring the

life lessons across to the readers. Images are more

powerful than words, but more importantly pictures are

universal and do not need a special translation. This

explains certainly the great success this book got; while

the text is often wrongly translated, or tries to render

the same essence of the original phrasing, the

illustrations stay true to themselves and to what they

represent and never give an ambiguous information.

Of course we can debate about this very intensive

analysis if the author really wanted to stress those points

out or if they are only a posteriori made argument to try to

explain the text – image relation. Nobody knows and it

remains the mystery and beauty of this work. A lot can be

seen in this text, such a biblical references like the

notion of seven days, and of course the seven sins (the

different planets), the sacrifice of the innocent “lamb”

for the good education of future generations (the young

readers), bringing hope through the painful experience of

Life, the figure of the snake as the temptation to fall

into a dream/death as an easy solution to the reality of

life. In this last case, we can actually see this book as a

existentialist position, such it is explored in Camus’

essays: the revolted man sees the absurdity of life (there

is a key word we already encountered before in the text,

said by the little prince) but instead of giving in to the

natural reflex to escape through death/suicide, he acts

against this absurdity to be able to surpass it, to find a

higher purpose to life.

After observing all these facts and by comparing them

back and forth, I propose this discussion: what exactly is

the narrator’s goal? In many ways he tries to explain

across his “own” experience to explain how the external

value is just mere appearance and that the truth is

invisible to the naked eye. Yet, he does not lay off the

“adult” procedure of ringing up a serious project: there

are clear “serious” material approaches like sciences and

explanatory texts that are used and that seem to be out of

place in this particular context. What is achieved by this

contradicting work? Can we actually believe the narrator to

be honest and converted to the little prince’s cause? Or is

he simply a grownup who tries really hard to share his

story but in the end cannot come to this perfect state

where childhood and adulthood are combined to give peace

and serenity to the soul? Or could we argue that those

elements are only way to accentuate the futility of these

methods and that either way, the truth can really only be

accessed by letting pure imagination invade the real world?

These particular questions define or explode the

limitation of the nature of the story: De Galembert tries

to ballpark the “essence” of the Little Prince. He questions

the simplicity of the book and its increasing popularity

into the literary field: is this book a myth or a fairy

tale?

De Galembert analyses the narrative with Vladimir

Propp’s definitions of the fairy tale. This analysis is

based essentially on the study of the different motives,

meaning the different episodes that constitute the story.

Trying to avoid the trap of over-classification, like it is

the case for Delarue-Tenèze’s catalogue and Aarne-Thompson

classification, Propp talks about functions, trying to get

rid of the variables that occur in the text (decorum, names

and attributes of characters) and solely focus on their

relation with the action: the function is the action of a

character, from the point of view of its significance in

the development of the plot. Thus, Propp boils down the

tale’s structure to 31 functions, which can be regrouped

into sequences, giving all tales its morphological

skeleton. The initial situation prepares the event of a

misfortune, leading to a knot/plot (the misdeed) that

represents the dynamic of the tale. This dynamic gives

birth to a need and therefore a quest to repair this need

through a series of ordeals with help of auxiliaries.

Finally the conclusion draws to the final situation by the

punishment of the villains and the transfiguration of the

hero.

The critical author brings forth the idea that all

fairy tale main characters do not have any internal

psychology; their subject is their motivation to come to

the end of the quest. This is also the case for the little

prince: we do not know much about him; the narrator fails

to give us a concrete description. He has no name, no first

name; only through the qualifier we can deduce he is a little

prince, as well as in size as in in age, the youth

underlining the innocence of his being. Another remark is

the title does ring awfully familiar with other popular

tales like the Little Mermaid, or the Little Red Riding Hood.

But, by comparing with Greimas’ actantial model, de

Galembert realizes that the little prince does not really

have a quest per se, there is no sought object that urges

him to go on an adventure. The text itself has no necessity

and by it is formal structure shows the randomness of the

little prince’s itinerary. And the main character does not

seem to know what he is looking for either, making his

story a story without a story where the episodes follow

each other and could be interchangeable, like the visits of

the planets. There seems to be a fictive gradation by the

set of the imperfect tense and the adjective that indicate

the number. Another important component of a tale is the

friction and tension between subject and enemy. But in this

story, he has no enemy; there is no confrontation. Even if

we might see the snake as a villain, he actually helps the

main character to go back home, diverting from all

prejudices and expectations.

In his first chapter, de Galembert concludes that the

Little Prince is a tale yet is it not, since it does not

respond to all of the main criteria developed to determine

a narrative. It does not present Propp’s not Greimas’

traditional features but in the light of Bettelheim’s

theories, the Little Prince does present an evolution

throughout the text, which makes it the purpose of the text

after all. The other option to classify this text is

consequently to consider it as a myth.

In many ways, Saint Exupéry’s book presents mythical

features; the size of the “serious book”, the simplicity,

etc. Thematically speaking, the author takes on

philosophical questions, as well as existential ones, in

cosmic dimensions. Finally, the general atmosphere of the

book is indefinable and undetermined, “disturbing and

frightening” (25), in the quest of the sacred without being

able to reach it. The banality of the main character is a

way to make everybody identify with him is a purely feature

of the tale while the myth relates to humanity’s fate in

general by a very clearly defined main character, a

singular individual like Sisyphus, Oedipus or even

Prometheus. But the main difference between tale and myth

is, according to de Galembert, the microcosmic victory of

the tale’s hero versus a macrocosmic one in the myth. The

Little Prince both related to tale and myth, since its end can

be both been seen as microcosmic and macrocosmic. With the

help of some ancient figures (the rose, the wise fox,

etc.), the narrator employs the same paths as the former

literature did: absence of any spatial-temporal relevance

to History, the story of the Little Prince is timeless, or as

Eliade states: “ the myth narrates a sacred story, it

relates an event that happened in a primordial time, the

fabulous time of all beginnings” (29). The final aspect

that makes this narrative a myth is the tragic ending.

Although globalization made this character as a very

popular figure, one tends to forget that the disappearance

of the little prince is heart breaking and, contrary to the

tale, where everybody “lives happily forever after”, it

brings a certain bitterness to the lessons learned.

Seen as the most popular children’s book, we cannot

pass by this opportunity to see it as an Entwicklungsroman,

if we want to consider the little prince’s disappearance as

a symbolic death (which it is not, since it is a

disappearance) and the first steps into adulthood: he

disappears because he is growing up and he leaves behind a

whole lot of nostalgia, a note that we find in the

narrator’s tone sometimes. There are a lot of elements that

speak for and against certain theories, but it is a very

tricky job to come to an understanding of the whole idea

given by Saint Exupéry. The Little Prince is truly unique in

its form and its rendition. The importance given to the

image gives birth to a new kind of Platonism where the

truth resides behind the mere appearance that we humans

tend to forget in our haste and unessential quest for

futile occupations. The little prince, the child in us,

teaches us to step back and rethink all the values of life

before losing what is the best in all of us: friendship,

love, responsibility and existence.