critique essay about the little prince

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Little Prince — Analysis Of The Little Prince From A Philosophical Point Of View

Analysis of The Little Prince from a Philosophical Point of View

Categories: The Little Prince

About this sample

Words: 1951 |

10 min read

Published: Aug 6, 2021

Words: 1951 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

'Micro-evil' - evil within a certain person
'Macro-evil'- is evil in general.

Storylines and features of the composition of the tale

Summarizing the study.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3.5 pages / 2123 words

7 pages / 3092 words

6 pages / 2729 words

3 pages / 1406 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Analysis of The Little Prince from a Philosophical Point of View Essay

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on The Little Prince

In Antoine de Saint Exupery’s short narrative “The Little Prince”, the division between adults and children is clearly defined through their use of imagination. The typical adult perspective is irrational and close minded. [...]

In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell uses several literary techniques to develop the theme that totalitarianism is destructive. He does so by using extensive imagery, focusing on the deterioration of the Victory Mansions, [...]

In order for one to exist in a totalitarian society whose government is successful in its control, one must deal on a day-to-day basis with strong persuasion and propaganda. These totalitarian societies have an iron grip on [...]

The fear of a dystopian future that is explored in both Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis and George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four is reflective of the values of the societies at the time and the context of the authors. As [...]

A government of an ideal society is meant to represent the people. It is the people’s choice to support, to select, and to seize government. The idea of open communication is employed as a way for people to choose the best [...]

Offred and Winston, the main protagonists of the two strikingly similar dystopian fictions, The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984, have disparate fates in the endings of the novels. Julia’s fate, however, is undetermined, as (like the [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › French Literature › Analysis of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

Analysis of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023

This last novel by the popular French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–44) is ostensibly a children’s book, set in the author’s familiar and cherished landscape of the Sahara of northern Africa. Although the central character is a pilot, this tale has little to do with actual flight; the storytelling of The Little Prince is far removed from the quasi-biographical and autobiographical musings of the author’s earlier works that often deal with an airplane pilot’s exploits. These earlier works include Night Flight ( Vol de nuit , 1931) and Southern Mail ( Courrier sud , 1929). The pilot as narrator in The Little Prince does appear as he is forced to land in the desert, but this is where the biographical familiarity ends, for it is here that the protagonist encounters the eponymously small prince who tells wise and enchanting stories of other worlds that he has visited. The simple beauty of this charming parable has delighted adults and children alike over the many decades since it was written in the late years of World War II. In addition, Saint-Exupéry’s own illustrations of The Little Prince have appeared on a plethora of merchandise, perpetuating the success of the novel and its author.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his wife in Paris.Photograph by Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty

The book was dedicated to Leon Werth, Saint-Exupéry’s closest friend, and more particularly to Werth when he was a child. The dedication states that Werth—unlike many adults—does in fact remember when he was a child. This assertion sets the tone for the tale proper, which ponders the loss of innocence in the world and rejoices in the simple joy and vast imagination that children possess. The narrator begins his story with a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant, drawn when he was six years old; he relates to his readers the frustration he felt when the adults who viewed it thought it looked like a hat and therefore discouraged him drawing any further pictures. Disillusioned from his dream, the narrator becomes a pilot and remains distrustful of grown-ups; when he does meet any adults who appear clear-sighted, the pilot shows them his childhood drawing as a means of testing their true understanding, but unfortunately they always see a hat, and their lack of imagination and interest allows them to see no further.

The pilot is so truly disappointed by the other adults he meets that he chooses the solitary existence familiar to many of Saint-Exupéry’s characters. He lives his life alone until he crashes his plane in the Sahara desert and meets a very serious and very small person. The little prince teaches the narrator to appreciate the beauty in life and the joy that is to be found in the mutual appreciation that one obtains from love and friendship. The little prince relates his adventures around numerous planets and his curious encounters with several adult characters, grown-ups who all occupy themselves with so-called matters of consequence, restricted by the ridiculous rules and regulations they impose upon themselves. Saint-Exupéry exposes the peculiarity of everyday adult activities through the man who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking and the businessman who counts the stars so obsessively that he is barely aware of what it is he is counting. Once again, Saint-Exupéry urges his readers to find freedom from modern life and materialism and stresses the importance of a responsibility to something beyond ourselves, a duty to others, the value of living for the good of someone else, be that through friendship, love, or work; after all, “what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The narrator urges his readers not to read this book thoughtlessly, as he has experienced so much grief recording his memories; this perhaps is a little insight into the spirit in which Saint-Exupéry writes and wishes to be read. Certainly the personal nature of all his stories resonates clearly, and there is an intimacy in The Little Prince that inspires a feeling of conspiracy between the author and those to whom he relates the memories of his dear friend. The pilot laments his own growing up and his diminishing ability to see beyond the immediate, unlike his little prince, who can see the elephant inside the boa constrictor and the sheep inside the box.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Des Vallières, Nathalie. Saint Exupéry: Art, Writing and Musing. Translated by Anthony Zielonka. New York: Rizzoli, 2004. Higgins, James E. The Little Prince: A Reverie of Substance. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. Saint Exupéry, Antoine de. Wartime Writings, 1939–1944.San Diego: HCJ, 1986. Schiff, Stacy. Saint Exupéry, A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1994. Webster, Paul. Antoine de Saint Exupéry: The Life and Death of the Little Prince. London: Macmillan, 1993.

Themes and Analysis

The little prince, by antoine de saint-exupery.

‘The Little Prince’ is a story with lots of interesting characters. In fact, we learn a lot from every character- how to or how not to behave; what to, and what not to focus on.

About the Book

Article written by Chioma Julie

Degree in M.C.M. Awarded Best Graduating Student in Literature-in-English at UNISEC.

‘ The Little Prince ‘ tells the story of a boy- now a young man, who crashes into a desert, where he meets an interesting personality- the little prince, from whom he learns a great deal.

This work of art contains so many powerful themes. What you will find here are just some of them, the ones flexible enough to accommodate what would otherwise have come as subthemes. Some of them include friendship, finding joy in nature, the beauty in simplicity, amongst others.

Friendship requires a great deal of understanding. It is a major theme in the book. We see this in the fox’s relationship with the little prince. We see it equally, or even more, in the boy’s relationship with the little prince. Creating ties with people comes with consequences and rewards.

Consequences, because people come and go. In the same way, the fox makes the little prince tame him and then becomes sad when the little prince has to go away. Rewards because of the memories. Just like the fox would look at the fields with the golden-colored shrubs, and remember his good friend, the little prince, the same way the little prince, through that friendship, starts to appreciate the little things he has, which in fact, aren’t so little- his beautiful flower which he tamed, and which has become his friend, just like the fox. Indeed, these are incomparable to the other ‘big’ things, because they are his. Big in quotes , because that is very debatable.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

The fox, indeed, thought the little prince a great deal.

The Deceptiveness of Adulthood

This is a major theme in the book. The story starts in a funny way, with the book dedicated, not to the adult who wrote it, but to the child who grew into that adult, a plea, presented in a funny way, but nonetheless, a plea. The grown-ups in the book think they know it all, that they know what the matters of consequence are, and what aren’t matters of consequence. Adults are seen as people who are wiser, or who should be, at least, because of the experiences time that age must have made them go through. Alas, the children in the book- the boy and the little prince , are much wiser than the adults, and are the ones who focus on what matters, knowing that the shell is only well… just a shell. At some point, the boy begins to use his two drawings- one, of the boa constrictor from the outside and two, of the boa constrictor from the inside, as the yardstick to ascertain which adult has or lacks understanding. Grown-ups aren’t all that, after all. In fact, they aren’t much, even.

The beauty in simplicity. What you need, is right here, not far away. The grown-ups in the book see simple things as trivialities. But to the children who really understand things and know what matters, the simple things matter as much, if not even more. The shell which the little prince talks about can be seen as the big thing, the things we see, the conspicuous things. But, what about what’s on the inside? The little prince learns a great deal from the fox. He learns simplicity and learns that what matters is not quantity, and that- that something has so many others that look like it physically, doesn’t mean much. What matters is what you have, being yours, being unique- to you, and that is simple. Simplicity in its purest form. Simplicity is seeing the boa constrictor as a boa constrictor, not some hat. Simplicity is knowing that the boa constrictors matter as much as golf does. Simplicity is choosing to reject the pill that prevents people from going thirsty, only to look foolish in the end, because, why would someone take the pill, and then end up spending the time saved, by the freshwater spring?

Curiosity and Proactiveness

Start early to nip potentially problematic things in the board before they become uncontrollable, just like one would, the baobabs. As the curtains are about to draw to a close, the boy continues to express his worries, which usually come in waves- that perhaps, the sheep finally ate the flower. Most times, worrying is unnecessary as it changes nothing. However, a little of it can help keep people on their toes. The boy is a tad bit on the high side, but curiosity does not always kill the cat. In fact, even if we are to run with that, satisfaction would most likely bring it back.

We see proactiveness and curiosity in the little prince. The first thing he asks the boy is to draw him a sheep. Then he remembers his flower and asks to know if sheep eat flowers- curiosity. He then goes on to make the boy draw something to protect his flowers, a muzzle. He also intends to remove the baobabs before they sprout and become uncontrollable. Proactiveness and curiosity help the little prince to achieve a lot, and this rubs off on the boy.

Finding joy in nature. The little prince finds joy in watching the sunset. Do not wait to be happy; just be, live in the moment, and enjoy the moment. It is amazing that something as beautiful as a flower would have thorns. The thorns are for protection. Nature is indeed fascinating to observe. You cannot play the role of an enemy to nature and have it easy. That simply complicates things. Nature and everything that is of it and in it- the vegetation, the waters, the stars, the imaginary sheep, the fox, the snake, the flowers, the beings, all in the story extend to all of us. Nature is refreshing. In the novel, children are more in tune with nature, more positively curious, and are the ones who know what they want, not the grown-ups who don’t even know why they are going where they are heading to; that is why they- the children- understand.

Pride in what you have. Contentment. Aim high, but appreciate the one(s) you have, while doing so. Contentment and ambition, or a healthy desire to achieve or acquire more, can coexist. This is a major lesson the little prince learns from the fox. When the little prince sees that his flower, his beautiful flower, unlike what he thought, has thousands more that look like her physically, it saddens him. Now he thinks his flower isn’t unique after all. He climbs the mountains with shafts. This makes him remember his three volcanoes, one of which is probably dead, or well on its way to dying. This saddens him. The fox makes him snap out of that sour mood, by reminding him that what is on the inside matters, and that what is his, is his, unique- to him, no matter how little they appear to be. What we think are the big things, the grande things, are not really all that, after all. The little prince becomes proud of his possessions, once again.

Writing Style and Tone in The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry makes use of simple sentence structure while crafting this piece. He writes in English of the modern times. Also, the vocabulary is quite simple, and one well-footed in the English Language, need not turn to the dictionary so many times, as that might become a complete turn-off. Simplicity in language is a key ingredient in communication. The author does well to key into that.

The tone used in ‘ The Little Prince ’ is conversational and friendly. It almost feels like one knows the narrator personally, from somewhere else, other than the book. The writer tells the story in such a way that the reader lives, not outside, but within the book, while reading. It makes the reader more empathetic, the tone. The author also employs a simple structure, generally- he uses simple paragraphing, with most chapters out of the 27, succinct. He also makes use of illustrations- drawings- to go just beyond telling the reader, to show the reader how good or not, an artist, the boy is.

Analysis of Symbols and Figurative Language in The Little Prince

The story of ‘ The Little Prince ’ is a book filled with lots of figurative expressions. In the book, there is also a significant number of things with much deeper meanings than they literally appear to have. Also, personification and irony as figures of speech are very dominant in the book. First, we will focus on the analysis of symbols, and then we will talk about figurative language in ‘ The Little Prince .’

Analysis of Symbols

Here, we will take a look at a few things from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s ‘ The Little Prince ’ and their underlying meanings.

The Box Containing the Sheep

This goes beyond just a box (believed to have a sheep in it). This signifies the power of choice. One can be anything one wants to be as long as one is living well within one’s own rights. In terms of money, it is the equivalent of giving someone a blank cheque. That box- that power of choice, though it is more of a cage for the sheep than it is liberty, gives the little prince the freedom to choose how he would want his sheep to look. The power of choice cannot be overemphasized. It is the type of power that makes non-existent, what would have been a problem, and makes the already existing problem fizzle out.

The Baobabs

A symbol of trouble and is, therefore, better handled before it escalates. See anything that brings problems as the baobabs. That way, you weed them out before they sprout and become uncontrollable. Ignorance and vanity are baobabs, and the large bulk of the responsibility lies with the people around those plagued by this to help them out. For sometimes, sick people do not even know that they are sick. Potential troubles are to be nipped in the board before they escalate, bloom, blow up, or become much more difficult to control, the same with baobabs.

The Beautiful Flower with Four Thorns

A symbol of delicateness. How the little prince handles it shows how delicate it is. The beautiful flower symbolizes our love for anything at all. When one loves something, it shows in how that thing is tended to by them.

The outer part. The shell symbolizes what we can see, the obvious or conspicuous things. Size, quantity- basically, physicality, even outer beauty are all shells. And as much as shells may matter, they do not matter more than what is on the inside- the inner being, the inner beauty or the lack thereof, the appearance within, the heart, and the thought. In fact, the latter should matter more- that is, to the ones who try to know, to tame, and to understand.

The stars symbolize a beacon of hope. The star is good, and good is the star. We can make our joyful memories stars, so that when we look up at the sky we smile again and again, we laugh, even. No, that is not crazy. And, stars can be found anywhere, not just in the sky.

Figurative Language

We will focus on the two figures of speech dominant in the book (irony and personification)- in action or words or both.

It is ironic that the adults who are thought to be wise aren’t as sensible after all.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

The little chap’s words.

It is also ironic that the king, who believes he is lord over all things- living and nonliving- has to wait for a favorable time to show the prince the sunset. That is beyond his control, and in fact, he isn’t lord over much as his lordship barely extends outside of him, the king hungry for a subject.

It is ironic that people would take pills to make them not become thirsty for a while, a week maybe, and then spend the minutes saved by a spring of fresh water.

“It is very tedious work, but very easy,” says the little prince about removing the baobabs when they are still small, making sure you don’t mistake them for the rose bushes. How can something be tedious and easy at the same time? This could very easily be mistaken for an oxymoron. But it is an irony.

Personification

Referring to a flower as she/her in Chapter 8.

She did not wish to go out into the world all rumpled, like the field poppies. It was only in the full radiance of her beauty that she wished to appear. Oh, yes! She was a coquettish creature! And her mysterious adornment lasted for days and days.

The little prince also converses with the proud flower as if it were a person. “Oh! How beautiful you are!” “Am I not?” the flower responded, sweetly. “And I was born at the same moment as the sun,” added the flower. The fox is also personified in Chapter 21.

What major lesson do we learn from The Little Prince ?

We can learn many lessons from ‘ The Little Prince ,’ but summarised- we should get our priorities right, stop focusing so much on the shell, and the aesthetics, and start focusing more on the heart, what’s on the inside. Why? Because what is on the inside would almost always matter more than what is on the outside. When the shell disappears, what is left? That is what matters.

What is the biggest realization from The Little Prince ?

The biggest realization from ‘ The Little Prince ‘ is that oftentimes, children are more in tune with what should actually matter than grown-ups are. A good example is the scene at the train station. All the children seemed to know where they are going and what they are going there to do. But, the grown-ups appear to be totally disconnected from reality and out of tune with nature.

What is the central theme of The Little Prince ?

It’s not quite easy to choose, but summarised, ‘ The Little Prince ‘ teaches us about friendship – how friends are loved, and how we ought to prioritize them because we are meant to prioritize what we love. Friendship is the central theme. Though all connected, other notable themes are proactiveness, curiosity, pride in what is yours, and so on.

How are baobabs used in The Little Prince ?

The baobabs are used to symbolize potentially troubling things that should be controlled before they become uncontrollable. The baobabs represent danger. When they are small, they represent potentially dangerous things. When they sprout or matter, they represent, not danger that is about to come, but one that is already here. Then, things got out of hand and would become difficult to control.

What does the shell symbolize?

The shell symbolizes the aesthetics, the outer part, the part we can see and quantify or place a value on. In the book, the fox makes the little prince realize that beauty lies in what is on the inside much more than it does in what is on the outside. When the shell is gone, what is left? What is left is important, because it is what matters.

What is the most ironic thing in the book?

The most ironic thing in the book is that adults, the very ones who are expected to know better because of… well, a wealth of experiences (or the impression that those exist), are the ones with their list of priorities upside down. A good example of irony in the book is grown-ups downing pills to save them some time by ‘preventing’ them from getting thirsty, only to wish to spend that time by a freshwater spring. Things couldn’t get more ironic than this.

What do the baobabs symbolise?

The baobabs symbolize trouble- potentially dangerous things that should be nipped in the board before they sprout and cause havoc. The baobabs, when they just begin to develop, scream ‘danger,’ symbolizing things that should be dealt with or handled before they become uncontrollable. Procrastination would mean disaster.

How was the fox personified in The Little Prince ?

A fox could communicate in a human language. A fox cannot hold a conversation with a person. That is as far as personification can go. We learn a lot from the personified horse. It is from this fox that the little prince learns to love all he has, no matter how little he thinks them to be. It is also from the fox that the little prince learns the value of friendship above all, and that what lies within would almost always be greater than what lies without.

About Chioma Julie

Chioma is a graduate from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She has a passion for music, movies, and books. Occasionally, she writes to unwind.

Join Our Free Community

Engage in Literary Forums

Create and Join Groups

Create your own profile

See fewer ads

Save and bookmark articles

Discover literature and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

See blocked member's posts
Mention this member in posts
Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

The Literary Edit

Review: The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I often wonder if I’ll ever reach a point in my reading life where I’m satisfied by the amount of books I’ve read; where I can say with confidence that I’ve read the classics and the critically acclaimed that have long haunted my to-be-read pile. Thus far, 2019 has been a good year for books: I read my first Agatha Christie, I read a Russian classic hailed by many as the best book of the twentieth century. I finished thirteen books in January; more in the months that have since passed. I too have read my first book by an Indonesian author, and a couple of contemporary novels I’ve had my eye on for a while. And yet, and yet, there are still many hundred of books I fear I may never get around to reading, unless given a particular reason to do so.

The Little Prince was one of the said unread books until a fortnight ago. While I’m sure I may have read it as a child, as an adult it’s always been a book that had never quite made it to my list of reading priorities until a friend recommended it recently. I had just finished The Master and Margarita when I was queuing for a coffee at my local bookshop in Bondi, Gertrude & Alice, and I saw they had the Penguin Classic edition was on sale. With no plans for the rest of the morning, hot drink in hand, I settled myself down to read, the air infused with coffee beans and the hum of idle chatter.

Beloved by many since its first publication in 1943, Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is an enchanting fable imbued with life lessons that tells the tale of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the intricacies of adult behaviour through a series of unexpected encounters.

A profound and poetic tale, the story is a philosophical one and through its social criticism of the adult world, reminds its readers that we were all children once. Written during a period when Saint-Exupéry fled to North America subsequent to the Fall of France during the Second World War, it is, according to one review, “…an allegory of Saint-Exupéry’s own life—his search for childhood certainties and interior peace, his mysticism, his belief in human courage and brotherhood, and his deep love for his wife Consuelo but also an allusion to the tortured nature of their relationship.”

Rich with timeless lessons that are cushioned behind layers of delightful story-telling. The Little Prince is the sort of book that will inspire wonder and reflection, even in the most cynical, and world-weary adult.

And so, to end, my favourite quote from this poignant and profound novella: “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

About The Little Prince

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.

About Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry was born in 1900 in Lyon. In 1921, he began his training as a pilot By 1926, he had became one of the pioneers of international postal flight. In 1935 he embarked on a record-breaking attempt to fly from Paris to Saigon. Nineteen hours into the flight, his plane crashed in the Sahara desert. He survived the crash but spent three days battling dehydration, limited food and hallucinations. On the fourth day, the was rescued. In part, this experience was the inspiration for The Little Prince . He continued to fly until World War II, during which he took self-imposed exile. On 31 July 1944, he disappeared over the Mediterranean while flying a reconnaissance mission.

Love this post? Click here to subscribe.

4 comments on “Review: The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”

What a lovely post! I am a new subscriber from Sweden. Looking forward to read more reviews from you!

Thanks for stopping by Anna and for your lovely words – they made my day! xo

I love the little prince it’s my favourite book

It’s a really lovely, touching tale, isn’t it? xo

The Strange Triumph of “The Little Prince”

By Adam Gopnik

The Strange Triumph of “The Little Prince”

Of all the books written in French over the past century, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “Le Petit Prince” is surely the best loved in the most tongues. This is very strange, because the book’s meanings—its purpose and intent and moral—still seem far from transparent, even seventy-five-plus years after its first appearance. Indeed, the startling thing, looking again at the first reviews of the book, is that, far from being welcomed as a necessary and beautiful parable, it bewildered and puzzled its readers. Among the early reviewers, only P. L. Travers—who had, with a symmetry that makes the nonbeliever shiver, written an equivalent myth for England in her Mary Poppins books—really grasped the book’s dimensions, or its importance.

Over time, the suffrage of readers has altered that conclusion, of course: a classic is a classic. But it has altered the conclusion without really changing the point. This year marks an efflorescence of attention, including a full-scale exhibition of Saint-Exupéry’s original artwork at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York. But we are no closer to penetrating the central riddle: What is “The Little Prince” about ?

Everyone knows the basic bones of the story: an aviator, downed in the desert and facing long odds of survival, encounters a strange young person, neither man nor really boy, who, it emerges over time, has travelled from his solitary home on a distant asteroid, where he lives alone with a single rose. The rose has made him so miserable that, in torment, he has taken advantage of a flock of birds to convey him to other planets. He is instructed by a wise if cautious fox, and by a sinister angel of death, the snake.

It took many years—and many readings—for this reader to begin to understand that the book is a war story . Not an allegory of war, rather, a fable of it, in which the central emotions of conflict—isolation, fear, and uncertainty—are alleviated only by intimate speech and love. But the “Petit Prince” is a war story in a very literal sense, too—everything about its making has to do not just with the onset of war but with the “strange defeat” of France, with the experience of Vichy and the Occupation. Saint-Exupéry’s sense of shame and confusion at the devastation led him to make a fable of abstract ideas set against specific loves. In this enterprise, he sang in unconscious harmony with the other great poets of the war’s loss, from J. D. Salinger—whose great post-war story, “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” shows us moral breakdown eased only by the speech of a lucid child—to his contemporary Albert Camus, who also took from the war the need to engage in a perpetual battle “between each man’s happiness and the illness of abstraction,” meaning the act of distancing real emotion from normal life.

We know the circumstances of the composition of “The Little Prince” in detail now, courtesy of Stacy Schiff’s fine biography, “Saint-Exupéry.” Escaped from Europe to an unhappy, monolingual exile in North America, engaged in petty but heated internecine warfare with the other exile and resisting groups (he had a poor opinion of DeGaulle, who, he wrongly thought, was setting the French against the French, rather than against the Germans), Saint-Exupéry wrote this most French of fables in Manhattan and Long Island. The book’s desert setting derives from the aviator Saint-Exupéry’s 1935 experience of having been lost for almost a week in the Arabian desert, with his memories of loneliness, hallucination, impending death (and enveloping beauty) in the desert realized on the page. The central love story of the Prince and Rose derives from his stormy love affair with his wife, Consuelo, from whom the rose takes her cough and her flightiness and her imperiousness and her sudden swoons. (While he had been lost in the desert in ’35, Schiff tells us, she had been publicly mourning his loss on her own ‘asteroid,’ her table at the Brasserie Lipp.) The desert and the rose—his life as an intrepid aviator and his life as a baffled lover—were his inspiration. But between those two experiences, skewering them, dividing them with a line, was the war.

In the deepest parts of his psyche, he had felt the loss of France not just as a loss of battle but also as a loss of meaning . The desert of the strange defeat was more bewildering than the desert of Libya had been; nothing any longer made sense. Saint-Ex’s own war was honorable: he flew with the GR II/33 reconnaissance squadron of the Armée de l’Air . And, after the bitter defeat, he fled Europe like so many other patriotic Frenchmen, travelling through Portugal and arriving in New York on the last day of 1940. But, as anyone who lived through it knew, what made the loss so traumatic was the sense that the entire underpinning of French civilization, not merely its armies, had come, so to speak, under the scrutiny of the gods and, with remarkable speed, collapsed.

Searching for the causes of that collapse, the most honest honorable minds—Marc Bloch and Camus among them—thought that the real fault lay in the French habit of abstraction. The French tradition that moved, and still moves, pragmatic questions about specific instances into a parallel paper universe in which the general theoretical question—the model—is what matters most had failed its makers. Certainly, one way of responding to the disaster was to search out some new set of abstractions, of overarching categories to replace those lost. But a more humane response was to engage in a ceaseless battle against all those abstractions that keep us from life as it is. No one put this better than the heroic Bloch himself:

The first task of my trade (i.e. of the historian, but more broadly the humanist properly so called) consists in avoiding big-sounding abstract terms. Those who teach history should be continually concerned with the task of seeking the solid and concrete behind the empty and abstract. In other words, it is on men rather than functions that they should concentrate all their attention.

This might seem like a very odd moral to take from the experience of something as devastating as the war. But it wasn’t merely intellectual, an amateur’s non-combatant epiphany. At a purely tactical, military level, the urge to abstraction had meant the urge to fetishize fixed, systematic solutions at the expense of tactical fluidity and resourcefulness. The Maginot line was an abstract idea that had been allowed to replace flexible strategy and common sense. (One recalls Picasso’s comment to Matisse, when the troubled French painter asked him, in 1940, “But what about our generals, what are they doing?”: “Our generals? They’re the masters at the Ecole des Beaux Arts!” Picasso responded, meaning men possessed by the same rote formulae and absence of observation and obsessive traditionalism as the academic artists.

From an experience that was so dehumanizing and overwhelming—an experience that turns an entire human being with a complicated life history and destiny first into a cipher and then into a casualty—Saint-Exupéry wanted to rescue the person, not the statistic. The statistics could be any of those the men on the planets are obsessed with, the ‘counting’ fetish that might take in stars if one is an astronomer or profits for businessmen. The richest way to see “Le Petit Prince” is as an extended parable of the kinds and follies of abstraction—and the special intensity and poignance of the story is that Saint-Exupéry dramatizes the struggle against abstraction not as a philosophical subject but as a life-and-death story. The book moves from asteroid to desert, from fable and comedy to enigmatic tragedy, in order to make one recurrent point: You can’t love roses. You can only love a rose.

For all of the Prince’s journey is a journey of exile, like Saint-Exupéry’s, away from generic experience towards the eroticism of the particular flower. To be responsible for his rose, the Prince learns, is to see it as it really is, in all its fragility and vanity—indeed, in all its utter commonness!—without loving it less for being so fragile. The persistent triumph of specific experience can be found in something as idiosyncratic and bizarre as the opening image of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant, which, the narrator tells us, the grownups can only see as a generic object. (This is where Saint-Ex and the Surrealists who admired him—a tracing of his hand appears in one of the issues of the Surrealist journal Minotaur —touch. Rene Magritte’s paintings, with their very similar obsession with middle-class hats, suggest that every time you see a bourgeois derby there may be a boa constrictor inside. The X-ray of every hat reveals a boa constrictor in every head. That could be the motto of every Surrealist exhibition.)

The men the Prince meets on his journey to Earth are all men who have, in Bloch’s sense, been reduced to functions. The Businessman, the Astronomer, even the poor Lamplighter, have become their occupations, and gone blind to the stars. It is, again, the essential movement we find in Camus, only in “The Little Prince” it is shown to us as comic fable rather than realistic novel. The world conspires to make us blind to its own workings; our real work is to see the world again.

A version of this essay first appeared, in French, in the magazine France-Amerique; it was also the subject of a lecture at the Morgan Library & Museum.

Books & Fiction

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial

By Ronan Farrow

Donald Trump Is Being Ritually Humiliated in Court

By Eric Lach

How Columbia’s Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza

By Andrew Marantz

Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation

By Adam Iscoe

C.A. Hughes Book Reviews

The literary journeys of a 20-something, bilingual, elementary school teacher.

Book Review: “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Book Details:

Year of Publication: 1943

Genre: Fable (Middle Grade)

Format (How I Read It): Paperback

Goodreads Synopsis:

A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. “Please,” asks the stranger, “draw me a sheep.” And the pilot realizes that when life’s events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper… And thus begins this wise and enchanting fable that, in teaching the secret of what is really important in life, has changed forever the world for its readers.

Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince , presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.

Book Review

Themes: Don’t judge others. Friendship. Listen to your heart. Don’t grow up too fast.

“Then you shall pass judgment on yourself,” the king answered. “That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it’s because you are truly a wise man.”

Character Development: The pilot and the Little Prince were definitely the two most important characters of this story, and the other minor characters that showed up were really only there to establish different lessons and morals. Which was fine! It’s a very abstract story with unusual characters. I was intrigued by them, but didn’t necessarily feel super connected to them.

Plot/Pacing: For such a short book, it did move pretty slow. It goes at a leisurely pace as both the pilot and the Little Prince learn various life lessons. There was one section where the Little Prince is hopping from planet to planet, and these were probably my favorite chapters! They felt more lively and introduced several new, odd characters.

“He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world.”

Writing Style: Whimsical. Abstract.

“Bingeability”: Moderate. It’s short, but since it’s so abstract you kind of have to take your time and really think about what’s happening.

Emotional Investment: Moderate.

Windows and Mirrors: Other planets?

“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

Overall Thoughts: This was a strange book! I somehow had never read this as a kid, but I had definitely heard of it. That being said, I went in to it knowing little-to-nothing about the story. It was much weirder and more confusing than I expected! And I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way. I thought it had a lot of great themes in it which I found really interesting. However, it still didn’t love this one. I normally like this type of book; it reminded me of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which is similar in that it is fable-like and is more focused on theme rather than plot or character development. However, something was just missing for me here. But I think it’s just a personal issue! I just didn’t connect with it, but it’s a well-written and thought-provoking book that is worthy of its status as a classic.

Recommendation: I work with many emergent bilinguals, and I couldn’t help but think about them as I was reading. I think this would be a difficult one to read in a language that isn’t your dominant language, so that’s definitely something to keep in mind. That being said, I think this would be fun to do as a novel study with advanced readers (maybe 5th grade and up). I was also thinking that some of the chapters could work as expert models for learning about theme! Some are short and could stand on their own, so this could be a good way to use it in the classroom.

Thank you for reading my review! Leave a comment letting me know if you’ve read this one or have any questions about it, and keep an eye out for my next review!

The Little Prince

Introduction to the little prince.

The Little Prince was originally translated in English from the title Le Petit Prince, a short and simple novel , an imagination of the French aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The novel was translated into English by Reynal & Hitchcock, published in April 1943. However, it invited an immediate ban from the Vichy Regime ruling France at that time. The novel presents a young prince meeting the pilot of an airplane, who had crash-landed in the Sahara desert. The prince narrates the stories of various characters he meets on different planets, discussing their problems and predicaments of love, friendship, and life. Despite its being a narrative for children, it cleverly presents universal dilemmas human beings are facing on this planet.

Summary of The Little Prince

The story of the novel presents a pilot who tells about his childhood and the pictures that he used to draw having different meanings for different people. One of them is a depiction of an elephant eaten by a snake which looked like a lumped hat for the adults and always criticized the narrator to concentrate on important subjects like geography at schools rather than fanciful and creative things. Then he takes the reader to his present situation of having found himself crash-landed in the vastness of the Sahara desert where he finds a Little Prince with golden curly hair approaching him when he is feeling not only the heat but also the thirst and hunger.

The narrator has to fix the plane before he runs out of eight days of supplies. The Little Prince is not afraid of asking questions constantly until he receives an answer. The young prince, then, requests, him to have a sketch of a sheep that the narrator draws along with the box to which the narrator complies, and both befriend. Soon the pilot comes to know very strange and unique stories from that Little Prince who tells him about different asteroids having different numbers and unique features.

The Little Prince, then, states that he takes great care of the planet where he lives. He does not let the seeds grow into baobab trees that are malign for the environment. He also states that he loves roses due to having a rose plant on his planet with which he communicates daily and that it works wonders in her loneliness. It happens that the Prince starts narrating stories of his different journeys to different asteroids that he has completed. When going through the stories, he also comments on the different human expressions, emotions, and reactions to different things and concludes that human beings are strange creatures to go through such a variety of experiences and emotions.

During his narratives, the Little Prince states that he has met a king, an arrogant person, an addict, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographical expert during his journeys. Yet he finds that they have all been suffering from different negative emotions. This strange type of negativity has rather perturbed the prince who has not understood their real motives. Although he admires the obstinacy of the lamplighter as a good thing, he also reaches the conclusion that the human beings he has met on these different asteroids do not possess any beneficial characteristics except some among which geographer is also one.

The geographer has told the prince that flowers are useful but have a temporary life, and therefore, needed to be taken care of. The rose he takes care of on his planet demands him to do everything according to her will, which creates distrust in him and would judge her words rather than her actions. In reality, both loved each other but couldn’t show it because of their silly differences and interpretations.

At the narrator’s suggestion about doing something, the prince reaches a desert spot on the earth to meet human beings and come to know about a riddle speaking snake to which the Little Prince turns a deaf ear and continues roaming around until he meets a flower and tests his echo on a little mountain. Finally, he finds a rose orchard where he comes to know that his rose is different from all these roses and that it is the only of its kind because he has tamed it and not the rest of the other roses just like he tamed the fox and it is special. Befriending a fox makes him learn things that ‘a person can see through his heart is clearer and anything essential becomes invisible to the eye’ He also comes to know more about different abstract ideas through his encounters with people, a railway signalman, and a salesman.

When his narratives are on the verge of ending, both feel thirsty and move in search of a well where they come to a consensus that not too many people agree on the same point. They both understand that what makes things beautiful is because of their invisibility. Both express their willingness to return to their respective places and the Little Prince makes deals with the snake because his body is too heavy to take him back to his planet he lets the snake bite him, leaving him to fall to the ground.

When the pilot comes to know about it, he becomes very gloomy at his death but finds his body disappeared on the very next day. He, afterward, imagines the stars showing his friend, the Little Prince, smiling and giggling at him. Then the narrator asks the readers to take part in his narrative by stopping for stars and imagining Little Prince happily laughing.

Major Themes in The Little Prince

Understanding: The novel, The Little Prince, shows the thematic strand of understanding between different creatures through the commentary of the fox who says that what is important is often not visible to us. It means the author wants to stress upon this idea that when there is an understanding, things easily reconcile and becomes feasible for human beings. When the pilot comes to know about it, he repeats it several times in his mind to overcome its meaning. When the Little Prince departs from the desert, he comes to know how this simple phrase has become seductive due to his love for the rose and in turn the pilot’s love for the prince.
Effort: The theme of effort is ever-present in the novel in that the Little Prince has done great efforts to spoil his rose like a child. He has rather tamed it with much love that the fox also points out to him that he is responsible for what he tames. All the characters including the prince and the pilots are putting effort into for caring each other that has created a relationship. This relationship has changed the world for them. That is why the pilot suffers from loneliness and pangs of nostalgia when the prince dies and leaves the earth.
Love and Separation: Love and separation are intertwined and one makes the other prominent as the fox points out that if the Little Prince wants him to be a friend, he must tame him first. This creates a relationship that lasts for longer than a person can think. The Little Prince thinks about his flower and comes to know that actually, he has tamed his flower. So, it comes into his thoughts often as he recalls it. This is the love that separation from his rose is intensified in the story.
Growing Up: The novel shows the thematic strand of growing up of the children through the Little Prince whom the pilot thinks a child until he tells him things that are significant in life. The pilot is little aware of the point of tameness in life but when the Little Prince points him out he comes to know about its significance in life, in love, and its interaction in human relationships. He also comes to know negative human emotions of pride, vanity, and greed through this little friend whose narratives of different planets set his record straight.
Lack of Purpose: The Little Prince stresses the purpose or objective in life. When the pilot comes to know that his narrative about different asteroids has different interesting characters but almost all of them have very trivial purposes in their lives, he sees that life without a purpose seems absurd and idiotic. For example, the lamplighter is only posted to light the lamps and the king is only there to issue commands without having any tangible purpose. This makes the Little Prince feel ashamed of himself that he has accepted such illogical things.
Fear of Time: At one point, the Little Prince meets the salesman who tells him that he is selling pills that are a substitute for drinking water. The prince is amazed at his claim and asks him why it is so. In response, the salesman tells him that it is the fear of time. However, when he asks the purpose of this venture, he does not elicit any answer from him which makes him think about the time and the rationality behind wasting it.
Curiosity: The thematic strand of curiosity is significant because the Little Prince is not only curious but also highly quizzical about general things. The curiosity of the Little Prince spans over the nature of flower to the worlds he visits and his questions about the nature of life, about professions and professionals, and the nature of the task that the king, the salesman, and the geographers are performing. However, when compared to the world of adults, this curiosity seems childish, and in reality, is it very profound.
Nature: The theme of nature transfuses throughout the book on account of the information the little price has and wants to have about the earthly flora and fauna and their importance on his planet. The insidiousness of a short, thick tree is put into contrast with the innocence of roses and the natural world including the stars, the sunsets, and the starry nights that seem to laugh with the prince. When the Little Prince meets the king, he takes his boasts about the natural phenomenon quite seriously, the reason that he feels his love for his rose.

Major Characters The Little Prince

The Narrator: The first-person narrator of the novel, The Little Prince , is an aviator by a professional who has crash-landed in some part of the Sahara desert where he meets the Little Prince and faces an uncertain future. However, he narrates his painting-making stories of how he used to be a naïve kid when he was in school and used to paint with curiosity. When the Little Prince meets him, he quickly adapts himself to his childish but realistic stories to enjoy and finally tries to leave the desert when the Little Prince dies and his dead body disappears on the next day.
The Little Prince: The Little Prince is the protagonist and the central character around whom the entire story revolves. The eponymous child-like character is a very simple, easy-to-deal, and naïve person yet his stories are highly suitable for adults and mysterious. He narrates several fantasies about different planets having different numbers and different people residing on them with whom he has a very good conversation. In detail, his conversations and interactions with the king, the salesman, and the geographer are highly meaningful as they take a philosophical turn. His conversations in the desert with the fox, the snake, and with some people are also complete of the message and hidden meanings.
The Rose: The Rose also becomes a character when it comes into contact with the Little Prince. The Little Prince has personified the rose as a female having fickleness with temporary beauty and flirtatious nature. Although the rose also loves the Little Prince, he becomes restless at her temporariness and fleeting nature.
The King: The character of the king is significant in the novel when the Little Prince comes into contact during his first expedition to Asteroid B-325. The King is found alone and yet ruling over his subjects comprising a single rat. The most important feature of this king is that he issues commands only when things are going to happen and not when they do not happen. He only moves with the moving things and stops with the things have stopped.
The Geographer: The significance of the geographer lies in that the geographer is a book lover as well as a book worm, yet he states that he does not go out to verify facts. He states that this is the job of the researchers and asks the Little Prince to visit the Earth on account of its good reputation.
The Vain Man: This dramatic character appears when the Prince starts his narration about his visit to Asteroid B-326. He tells the pilot that the boaster considers himself the most intelligent man and wants to be admired despite knowing the fact that he is alone.
The Businessman: The character of the businessman makes the Little Prince realize the importance of increasing one’s bank balance. They also discuss the difficulty of planning and earning them. However, the businessman has had to hear his tale of the rose that is hard to digest for him.
The Drunkard: The drunkard is a minor character who meets the Little Prince. He confesses that he is ashamed of it and wants help to get rid of his addiction.
The Street Lamplighter: The only character that impacts the Little Prince is the lamplighter who states that he obeys orders and keeps the lamps bright. The Little Prince does not consider him funny or ridiculous.
The fox and the snake: The character of the fox is important as the fox makes the prince realizes that the worth-loving things are invisible, while the snake makes him realize that he can send the Little Prince back home through his poison.

Writing Style of The Little Prince

Although it seems that the writing style that Antoine de Saint-Exupérya adopts for the narration of The Little Prince is very simple, easy to understand, and has a flow, it is inexplicably mysterious as well as highly alluring. It is also called shiver style or what is dubbed as “poetry in prose .” The fable that seems written for little children has almost the same whimsical appeal for the adults due to the simplicity of language and depth of the message it conveys. The narrative has been told from the first-person point of view . First by the pilot and then by the Little Prince. Despite have some dialogues , it shows informal diction and informal language generally used for children’s literature.

Analysis of the Literary Devices in The Little Prince

Action: The main action of the novel comprises the crash landing of the plane, the pilot’s meeting with the Little Prince, and the narratives of the Little Prince about different people he found on different asteroids referred to with numbers. The rising action occurs when the Little Prince narrates the story of the king and the falling action occurs when he narrates the story of the fox.
Allusion : The novel shows good use of different allusions as given in the examples below, Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature , about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal . (Chapter-I) ii. At a glance, I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night , such knowledge is valuable. (Chapter-I) iii. So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. (Chapter-2) iv. But that did not really surprise me much. I knew very well that in addition to the great planets–such as the Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus–to which we have given names, there are also hundreds of others, some of which are so small that one has a hard time seeing them through the telescope. (Chapter-4) The first example shows alluding to a book, the second to geographical places, the third to a geographical feature, and the fourth to celestial bodies.
Anaphora : The novel shows the use of anaphora . For example, But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose. (Chapter-21) ii. It seemed to me that I was carrying a very fragile treasure. It seemed to me, even, that there was nothing more fragile on all Earth. (Chapter-24) These excerpts show the repeated use of “because it is” and “It seemed to me” in the first part of the sentences .
Antagonist : The antagonist in The Little Prince , is the curiosity or the thirst of the Little Prince for answers. He questions everybody and wants to get an answer to all of his questions.
Conflict : The novel shows only internal conflict . The internal conflict comprises the Little Prince’s curiosity and the thirst to know everything at once.
Characters: The novel shows both static as well as dynamic characters. The Little Prince in the novel, The Little Prince, is a dynamic character as he shows a considerable transformation in his behavior and conduct by the end of the novel. However, all other characters are static as they do not show or witness any transformation such as the pilot, the king, the geographer, and even the salesman.
Climax : The climax in the novel occurs when the Little Prince decides to go back to his own planet and take care of his rose.
Foreshadowing : The novel shows many instances of foreshadows as given in the below examples, Oh, Little Prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life. (Chapter-6) ii. On the fifth day–again, as always, it was thanks to the sheep–the secret of the Little Prince’s life was revealed to me. (Chapter-7)
Hyperbole : The novel shows various examples of hyperboles such as, If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. (Chapter-6) ii. “I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved anyone.” (Chapter-6) iii. On the morning of his departure, he put his planet in perfect order. He carefully cleaned out his active volcanoes. (Chapter-9) These examples exaggerate things instead of showing the normal situation and characters as nobody can fly to France in a minute, nor is there a person living alone on a star, or a planet, or nor a person owns a planet, or visits any planet. In the world of children, however, the use of hyperboles is a normal practice.
Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, Now I stared at this sudden apparition with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment. Remember , I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear. (Chapter-2) ii. Seen from a slight distance, that would make a splendid spectacle. The movements of this army would be regulated like those of the ballet in the opera. First would come the turn of the lamplighters of New Zealand and Australia. Having set their lamps alight, these would go off to sleep. Next, the lamplighters of China and Siberia would enter for their steps in the dance, and then they too would be waved back into the wings. (Chapter-16) These two examples show images of color, sound, and feelings.
Metaphor : The Little Prince shows good use of various metaphors as given in the below examples, His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. (Chapter-20) ii. What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the Little Prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. (Chapter-21) These examples show that several things have been compared directly in the novel such as the first shows the flower compared to a man and the second things to invisible things.
Mood : The novel shows various moods; it is entertaining, funny as well as exciting but with the passage of time it starts losing its fun and rather becomes too alluring and too philosophical.
Motif : Most important motifs of the novel are the stars, flowers, paintings, and asteroids.
Narrator : The novel is narrated from the first-person point of view, who the pilot and the Little Prince.
Personification : The novel shows examples of personifications as given below, I don’t believe you! Flowers are weak creatures. They are naïve. They reassure themselves as best they can. They believe that their thorns are terrible weapons. (Chapter-7) ii. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. (Chapter-20) These examples show as if the flowers have feelings and lives of their own.
Protagonist : The Little Prince is the protagonist of the novel. The novel starts with her entry with the pilot and ends when his dead body disappears.
Setting : The setting of the novel is a place in the Sahara desert and then different mysterious places that the Little Prince visits.
Simile : The novel shows the use of various similes as given in the below examples, They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. (Chapter-4) ii. Volcanic eruptions are like fires in a chimney. (Chapter-9). iii. He twined himself around the Little Prince’s ankle, like a golden bracelet. (Chapter-17) iv. But he saw nothing, save peaks of rock that were sharpened like needles. (Chapter-18) v. And a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman’s cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder. (Chapter-22) These are similes as the use of the word “like” shows the comparison between different things such the first one between him and the child, and the second between volcanic eruptions and chimneys, the third between the snake and the bracelet, the fourth between the rocks and the needles and the last between the sound of an express train and the thunder.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the little prince.

Now streaming on:

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ’s “Le Petit Prince” has been translated into more than 250 languages and reportedly sold over 140 million copies worldwide. It is in millions of homes, having been read to millions of children. There have been radio plays, television adaptations and film versions. So why tell this story again? Could Mark Osborne , the director of “Kung Fu Panda,” really have something new to say regarding this timeless tale? And how do you adapt a relatively thin novella into a feature film that will keep kids entertained and adults entranced? “The Little Prince,” premiering on Netflix this Friday after Paramount inexplicably dumped it earlier this year (and after it has made almost $100 million worldwide) takes the themes of its source material and expands on them to create a lovely, big-hearted tale of adventure, friendship and imagination. Without a single pop song to be heard or a bodily humor joke to be endured, “The Little Prince” doesn’t talk down to its audience, treating them with the respect that so few American family films bother to do. It is a cinematic crime that the abrasive garbage that is “The Angry Birds Movie” and “Ice Age: Collision Course” get national releases while most people don’t even know “The Little Prince” is coming to win their hearts this weekend.

Osborne and his team shift focus to a new protagonist, “The Little Girl” (beautifully, richly voiced by Mackenzie Foy ), a smart heroine who is essentially being trained by her mother ( Rachel McAdams ) for the big, dangerous world of being an adult. She’s trying to get into the prestigious Werth Academy and her mother has her entire summer vacation planned out on a big board. Let’s just say, in this community in which all the homes look identical and every neighborhood is designed like a grid, this poor girl is going to be doing a lot of studying and not a lot of playing. Until she meets her neighbor.

While her single mother is at work, The Little Girl strikes up a friendship with the old man who lives next door. In a house that contains all the curves and quirks missing from the rest of the neighborhood, “The Aviator” ( Jeff Bridges ) tells his new friends stories, including the time he met “The Little Prince.” The details of The Aviator’s stories aren’t nearly as important as the themes they convey. As The Aviator relays stories of “The Rose” ( Marion Cotillard ), “ The Fox ” ( James Franco ), “The Snake” ( Benicio Del Toro ), and others, we watch The Little Girl come out of her shell. She’s fascinated by The Aviator’s drawings (which will be familiar to fans of the book) and learns the lessons that they just don’t teach you at school, even the Werth Academy. As it should be, “The Little Prince” is heavy with philosophical observations like “Growing up is not the problem, forgetting is” and “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” It’s notable that Osborne and company aren't afraid of deeper themes. It could have been tempting to turn “The Little Prince” into a wacky adventure movie (I guarantee there have been scripts of that nature on Hollywood desks), but Osborne’s take is deeply emotional and heartfelt. It gets a little repetitive in the mid-section, but the final act, which I won’t spoil, essentially brings The Aviator’s stories and lessons to life, making the journey worthwhile.

It helps one overlook the narrative and philosophical repetition that the film is accomplished on a technical level as well. Most notably, the score, co-composed by Hans Zimmer , is a lyrical, lovely piece of work. It carries the viewer along, fluidly tying together the worlds of “The Little Prince” (both the girl’s and the story of the prince). Visually, the first act of the film, with its square trees to match its square houses, reminded me of the suburban rigidity of the first act of Brad Bird ’s “ The Incredibles ,” while visions of the world of the title character reminded me of LAIKA gems like “ Coraline ” and “Paranorman.” These are good comparisons to make when one watches a family film. It’s in good company.

Ultimately, “The Little Prince” is a film that everyone should be happy to show their children. They might get a little bored, but if they even take away a positive theme or two, it’s worthwhile. And, in the end, adults might remember an important truth about the world as well. Becoming an adult doesn’t mean giving up on dreams, whimsy, imagination or love. It’s a lesson that children’s fiction has been teaching us since long before Saint-Exupéry published his hit novella. And yet in a world that seems increasingly dominated by hate speech and stories of violence, it’s one that we could stand to learn again.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Now playing

Sasquatch Sunset

Monica castillo.

Girls State

It's Only Life After All

Sheila o'malley.

Simon Abrams

Boy Kills World

Lousy Carter

Clint worthington, film credits.

The Little Prince (2016)

Rated PG for mild thematic elements.

108 minutes

Jeff Bridges as The Aviator (voice)

Rachel McAdams as The Mother (voice)

Paul Rudd as Mr. Prince (voice)

Marion Cotillard as The Rose (voice)

James Franco as The Fox (voice)

Benicio Del Toro as The Snake (voice)

Ricky Gervais as The Conceited Man (voice)

Bud Cort as The King (voice)

Paul Giamatti as The Academy Teacher (voice)

Riley Osborne as The Little Prince (voice)

Albert Brooks as The Businessman (voice)

Mackenzie Foy as The Little Girl (voice)

Mark Osborne
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Irena Brignull
Bob Persichetti

Cinematographer (co-cinematographer)

Carole Kravetz Aykanian
Matt Landon
Richard Harvey
Hans Zimmer

Latest blog posts

Speed Kills: On the 25th Anniversary of Go

Joanna Arnow Made Her BDSM Comedy for You

The Movies That Underwent Major Changes After Their Festival Premiere

Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives Is A Spinoff Stuck In Limbo

The Little Prince

By antoine de saint-exupery, the little prince essay questions.

What is the purpose of the Turkish astronomer in the story as a whole?

The story of the Turkish astronomer critiques the way grownups perceive the world. The first time the astronomer talked about Asteroid B-612, nobody took him seriously due to his appearance; this comments on the superficiality of the society we live in. However, when the Turkish astronomer presents the same exact information in "normal" or Western clothing, all of the "Big People" believe him and take his information into account. This little anecdote is placed at the beginning of the book and presents one of the most prominent themes in the book: children versus adults. The story clearly portrays the vanity of grownups, which is later analyzed in their love for numbers such as prices, percentages, and checks. Children, on the other hand, view things without judgment and look at the true beauty in the world.

Discuss the little prince and his relationship with the flower.

At first, when the flower magically appears on the prince's planet, the prince falls head over heels for it. The flower proclaims its uniqueness and portrays itself as the only rose in the whole world. The prince meets the flower’s every little petty desire. When the flower wants to be watered, the prince does just that; when it claims it needs a glass cover to protect itself from tigers, the prince builds one and shields it. However, as time passes, the prince gets rather annoyed with the flower and when he is about to leave, the flower begins to act in a more humble demeanor, yet remains too proud to ask the prince to stay. The flower even tells the prince to take off its glass cover and admits it is a plant.

When the prince begins his journey in the universe, he remembers his flower and misses it. The prince, in fact, feels regretful of leaving such a fragile creature alone on his asteroid. He feels this way until he runs into a garden full of roses and realizes that his flower lied to him and that there are thousands of flowers like it in the world. In that moment, the prince despises the flower. Nevertheless, the fox teaches the prince that regardless of there being thousands of flowers like his own, the one on his planet will always be unique to him because they love each other and he put work into taking care of her. Towards the end of the story, the prince begins to love his flower once again and hopes to return to her.

How is the motif of time represented in the story?

Whenever the prince meets a grownup, he realizes that they are all concerned with one thing: saving time. This is clear on the planet of the geographer, who claims he has no time to explore the world because he is in charge of recording it in his book (ironically, the book the geographer is so busy filling up is empty). Later, when the prince meets a vendor of pills that substitute for drinking water, the salesman tells the prince that adults don't want to even waste their time on something as indispensable as drinking water. The same idea is represented when the prince sees people on trains. In that moment, he is informed that the adults don't even bother looking out of their windows because of the fear they have of wasting their time. Through these encounters, Saint-Exupéry demonstrates that being patient, rethinking what is actually serious, and living an authentic life are more important than saving time.

What can readers learn from the prince?

The prince is young but he has much to offer readers. He is curious about everything and asks questions rather than take things at face value or not seek to learn more about the world around him. He is not affected by the vices of adults such as greed, hubris, lack of creativity, and willful ignorance. He is interested in cultivating meaningful relationships and eventually learns that the things that really matter are invisible rather than on the surface. He finds beauty in nature, works assiduously for others, and seeks to get to the heart of things. Readers can glean all of these characteristics of the prince quite easily and infer that Saint-Exupéry believes they ought to embrace the prince's values.

Is this a story for children, adults, or both?

On the one hand, this novel seems like it is for children. It is short, full of pictures, filled with fantastical elements, and centers on a small boy. Its prose is simple and its message putatively clear. On the other hand, the novel is not that straightforward. It deals with depression and isolation and death, and there is little resolution. Its tone and mood are melancholy and pensive. The prose is simple but full of metaphors and symbols. Thus, the novel is appropriate for both adults and children; this is no doubt why it is so popular worldwide.

GradeSaver will pay $15 for your literature essays

The Little Prince Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Little Prince is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Who is the inhabitant of The Little Prince's shortest visit?

The inhabitant is a conceited man.

Why does the little girl have the jar of pennies?

I see no evidence of a little girl with a jar of pennies or coins in the text.... chapter?

Fully describe the appearance of the Little Prince.

The Little Prince was a little man with golden hair. He wore a blue jacket with burgandy lapels and cuffs, golden stars attached to his soldiers, knee-high blue boots, and he carried a sword.

Study Guide for The Little Prince

The Little Prince study guide contains a biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About The Little Prince
The Little Prince Summary
Character List

Essays for The Little Prince

The Little Prince essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Disguised Imperfections: Human Nature in "The Little Prince," "The Mirror Maker," and "The Nose"
Matters of Consequence in "The Little Prince": Comparing Childhood and Adulthood

Lesson Plan for The Little Prince

About the Author
Study Objectives
Common Core Standards
Introduction to The Little Prince
Relationship to Other Books
Bringing in Technology
Notes to the Teacher
Related Links
The Little Prince Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Little Prince

Introduction
Tone and writing style
Inspirations

The Little Prince

80 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapters 20-21

Chapters 22-24

Chapters 25-27

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

The drawings in The Little Prince are arguably just as central to is meaning as its words are. Choose one of the drawings in the book and discuss how it contributes to the story's meaning.

The prince implies that the drawing of the sheep will actually come alive back on his home planet. What is the significance of this, in terms of the book's themes (imagination, meaning, etc.)?

Each section of Home of the Brave begins with an African proverb. What are these five proverbs and how do they align with Kek’s journey in his new country?

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wind, Sand, and Stars

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Featured Collections

French Literature

View Collection

Juvenile Literature

Summer Reading

SuperSummary Staff Picks

an image, when javascript is unavailable

Film Review: ‘The Little Prince’

Antoine de Saint-Exupery's timeless classic gets a loving 21st-century makeover, especially in its handcrafted stop-motion sequences.

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
Film Review: ‘The Runner’ 9 years ago
Film Review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ 9 years ago

Any animated feature screening in Cannes in the wake of Pixar’s universally adored “Inside Out” was bound to seem like an anticlimax. And when the movie in question happens to be an adaptation of one of the most beloved children’s novels of all time, the potential for disappointment looms especially large. But to the sure relief of armchair aviators everywhere, director Mark Osborne ’s “The Little Prince” turns out to be a respectful, lovingly reimagined take on Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic 1943 tale, which adds all manner of narrative bells and whistles to the author’s slender, lyrical story of friendship between a pilot and a mysterious extraterrestrial voyager, but stays true to its timeless depiction of childhood wonderment at odds with grown-up disillusionment. Independently made (on a reported $80 million budget) by French producer Dimitri Rassam , “The Little Prince” may lack the fast pace and high-concept storytelling of today’s most popular animated fare, but it should strike a solid chord with family audiences around the world (where the film has been heavily presold) and particularly in France, where Paramount opens the film July 29.

Published a year before Saint-Exupery disappeared somewhere over Corsica in his Lockheed P-38 fighter plane, “The Little Prince” took its inspiration from an earlier air disaster, in which the author, trying to break the record time in a Paris-Saigon race, crashed in the Sahara desert, near the Nile delta. From that, Saint-Exupery spun a fanciful, faintly ethereal fable about a downed airman who finds himself face-to-face with a curious, blond-haired young boy who claims to be the sole inhabitant of a distant asteroid (#B-612), and who regales the pilot with tales of the interplanetary travels that eventually brought him to earth.

Popular on Variety

Those adventures consist largely of meetings with puffed-up, self-important adults who imagine themselves to be powerful despots but are, in fact, just orbiting the universe alone on their own similarly uninhabited rocks. But there are also touches of melancholy romance, in the form of the Prince’s codependent relationship with a very demanding rose (which sends him fleeing B-612 in the first place), and a darkly poetic ending that can be interpreted as either a salvation or a suicide. Seventy years later, the book’s influence can be seen in everything from “The English Patient” to “The Lego Movie.”

The book was scarcely enough material for a feature film, which didn’t stop Hollywood from trying one in 1974 — an ill-advised live-action version, directed by “Singin’ in the Rain’s” Stanley Donen, that padded things out with a suite of unmemorable Lerner and Lowe songs, and one genuinely dazzling Bob Fosse dance routine. For the new film, Osborne (“Kung Fu Panda”) and screenwriters Irena Brignull (“The Boxtrolls”) and Bob Persichetti have taken the generally more effective tack of nesting Saint-Exupery’s story within an elaborate framing device set in the kind of modular modern metropolis prophesied by Jacques Tati’s “Playtime,” full of technology and free of wonder.

It’s there that we first meet the otherwise unnamed Little Girl (voiced by Mackenzie Foy), who lives with her single mom (Rachel McAdams) in cookie-cutter suburbia and spends every waking moment preparing for her entrance into a highly competitive prep school where students are stripped of the vestiges of childhood and molded into serious-minded, pint-sized adults. (The overscheduling of Little Girl’s life registers as a sly nod to the section of Saint-Exupery’s book set on a planet where thirst-quenching pills have been invented to save people the time it takes to drink a glass of water.)

Fortunately for Little Girl, her new next-door neighbor turns out to be an eccentric old Aviator (voiced by the doyen of eccentric old coots, Jeff Bridges), who comes into her life when an errant propeller from his backyard airplane careers into her house, and then sets about telling her his strange desert tale. As he does, “The Little Prince” makes a remarkable stylistic leap from the accomplished but familiar CG environs of these opening scenes (big-eyed, bobble-headed humans; modernist-futurist design influences) into 2D stop-motion animation, bringing the world of Saint-Exupery’s original story to life in beautiful handcrafted images based on the author’s own crudely elegant watercolors (seen in the book’s first printing and all subsequent editions).

And that is how “The Little Prince” introduces us to its title character (well voiced by Riley Osborne, the director’s son), his forlorn Rose (Marion Cotillard), and the fellow travelers — some helpful, some useless, some faintly menacing — he encounters on his journey: a Conceited Man (Ricky Gervais) who craves the applause of a nonexistent crowd; a King (Bud Cort) who presides over an empty realm; a Businessman ( Albert Brooks ) who claims to own all the stars in the heavens; a sinuous desert Snake (Benicio Del Toro); and a wild Fox (James Franco) who yearns to be tamed.

These scenes are a joy to behold — a bliss-out of brightly colored paper and hand-molded clay that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the texturally varied and vibrant stop-motion work seen in Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Henry Selick’s “Coraline.” But after 20 minutes or so, “The Little Prince” returns us to the CG present and a somewhat overlong midsection in which Little Girl suffers the de rigueur recriminations of mom and is forced to distance herself from her new friend. Things pick up again around the one-hour mark, when Little Girl takes flight herself in Aviator’s plane and ends up in a topsy-turvy alterna-universe where grown-ups rule the roost and the now-adolescent Prince (Paul Rudd) toils as a lowly nobody, having himself forgotten who he really is.

“The Little Prince” plays things relatively straight and safe from there, with the sort of antic, big-energy climax common to nearly all mass-market blockbusters, animated or otherwise. But even then, the film remains a consistent visual treat (the computer animation is more inspired in this section, with the grown-ups depicted as a colorless, zombified mass of tall, narrow bodies) and always echoes Saint-Exupery’s core theme of looking at the world through the hopeful, uncorrupted eyes of a child, where sometimes what appears to be a hat may in fact be a boa constrictor with an elephant inside.

In lieu of traditional musical numbers, composers Hans Zimmer and Richard Harvey provide a suitably wispy, wistful underscore, interlaced with a few original ballads performed by French chanteuse Camille and several classic chansons francises from the immortal Charles Trenet.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (noncompeting), May 22, 2015. Running time: 106 MIN.

Production: (Animated — France-Italy) A Paramount (in France)/Weinstein Co. (in U.S.)/Warner Bros. (in Germany/Japan) release of an On Animation Studios production in co-production with Orange Studio, LPPTV, M6 Films, with the participation of Canal Plus, M6, W9. (International sales: Wild Bunch, Paris.) Produced by Dimitri Rassam, Aton Soumache, Alexis Vonarb. Executive producers, Jinko Gotoh, Mark Osborne, Moritz Borman, Thierry Pasquet, Paul Rassam.
Crew: Directed by Mark Osborne. Screenplay, Irena Brignull, Bob Persichetti, based on “Le Petit Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; head of story, Persichetti. (Color, widescreen); editors, Matthew Landon, Carole Kravetz; music, Hans Zimmer, Richard Harvey; production designers, Lou Romano, Celine Desrumaux; sound designer (Dolby Digital), Tim Nielsen; supervising sound editors, Nielsen, Christopher Barnett; re-recording mixers, Nielsen, Barnett; visual effects supervisor, Pascal Bertrand; character designer, Peter De Seve; co-character designer, Barthelemy Maunoury; CG character supervisor, Hidetaka Yosumi; CG animation supervisor, Jason Boose; CG lighting supervisor, Adel Abada; stop-motion creative director, Jamie Caliri; stop-motion production designer and character designer, Alex Juhasz; stop-motion lead animator, Anthony Scott; associate producers, Brice Garnie, Olivier Rakoto; casting, Sarah Finn.
With: Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Marion Cotillard, Benicio Del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Bud Cort, Paul Giamatti, Riley Osborne, Albert Brooks, Mackenzie Foy, Paul Rudd. (English dialogue)

More From Our Brands

Jelly roll shares toby keith cover ahead of stagecoach debut, inside a $3.3 million one-bedroom condo in l.a.’s famed sierra towers, vince mcmahon lists final tko shares for sale, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, ratings: nfl draft, sheldon lead thursday; todd holds steady after cancellation, verify it's you, please log in.

Supported by

Critic’s pick

‘Challengers’ Review: Game, Set, Love Matches

Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist play friends, lovers and foes on and off the tennis court in Luca Guadagnino’s latest.

Share full article

‘Challengers’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director luca guadagnino narrates a sequence from his film, featuring josh o’connor and mike faist..

Hello, I’m Luca Guadagnino, and I am the director and one of the producers of ‘Challengers.’ In this sequence, we see the two male characters of ‘Challengers’— Patrick Zweig, played by Josh O’Connor, and Art Donaldson, played by Mike Faist — when they are in their early 20s. And they are very good tennis players. We meet them in Stanford, where Art is attending, while Patrick has left education to become a professional tennis player. This scene in particular depicts a moment, and evolution in their friendship that has been kind of diverted because of a third person came into their duo, which is Tashi Duncan, played by Zendaya. And what we see is basically a sort of game of rivalry sparkling between these two young boys over Tashi. But at the same time, a jealousy that ignites the relationship also. Because probably these two guys are also jealous of one another, not only of Tashi. “I think she’s making me an honest man. You don’t believe me?” “No, I’m just — I’m not sure how she’s thinking about all of this. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The character of Tashi is kind of an invisible presence, but a very profound presence in the scene. “Did she say something to you?” “No. I just got the impression she’s not thinking about this as a serious relationship.” And I kept the shot long, because I felt that we had to stay with them to learn the grammar of their behavior, and their behavior together. And we just cut once we realize that the game of manipulation laid bare on the table by Art has been spotted by Patrick. So we cut to a sort of reverse shot, extreme close up, where Patrick hugs, in a sort of ambiguous way. And so there is a sort of constant battle between the two of them to the degree that they are fighting, but they are taking care of one another. When the sugar goes on the cheek of Patrick, Art takes it off with his hand in a very nice gesture of kindness — and very intimate, I would say. But at the same time, they are really tense. And I think it’s about being jealous of one another, but at the same time wanting one another that we are trying to play out, and that Josh and Mike do in a beautiful way in the sequence.

By Manohla Dargis

You can always feel the filmmaker Luca Guadagnino trying to turn you on — he’s a zealous seducer. His movies are sleek divertissements about ravishing people and their often sumptuously rarefied sensibilities and worlds. I tend to like his work, even if it can be overly art-directed and feel too (excuse the verb) curated to stir the soul along with my consumer lust. I am moved when a father tenderly comforts his son in “ Call Me by Your Name ”; my most vivid memories of “ A Bigger Splash ” is its striking setting and a dress that Tilda Swinton wears.

Guadagnino’s latest, “Challengers,” is about a continually changing love triangle involving two besotted men and a sharp, beautiful woman with killer instincts and personal style. Largely set in the world of professional tennis, it is a fizzy, lightly sexy, enjoyable tease of a movie, and while someone suffers a bad injury and hearts get broken (or at least banged up), for the most part it’s emotionally bloodless. Even so, it’s a welcome break in tone and topic after Guadagnino’s Grand Guignol adventures in “ Suspiria ,” a take on a Dario Argento horror film, and “ Bones and All, ” about two pretty cannibals hungrily and moodily adrift.

Written by the novelist and playwright Justin Kuritzkes, “Challengers” is fairly straightforward despite its self-consciously tortured narrative timeline. It tracks three tennis prodigies — friends, lovers and foes — across the years through their triumphs and defeats, some shared. When it opens, the troika’s one-time brightest prospect, Tashi (Zendaya), has been retired from playing for a while and is now coaching her husband, Art (Mike Faist), a Grand Slam champ rapidly spiraling downward. In a bid to reset his prospects (he’s a valuable property, for one), he enters a challenger tournament, a kind of minor-league event where lower-ranking professionals compete, including against injured higher-ranking players.

That match takes place in New Rochelle, N.Y., an easy drive from Flushing, Queens, and the home of the U.S. Open, which Art has yet to win. It’s while in New Rochelle that he and Tashi dramatically reconnect with Patrick (Josh O’Connor), the errant member of their complicated three-way entanglement. A rich boy who cosplays as poor (well, at least struggling), Patrick met Art when they were children at a tennis academy. By 18, they were tight friends and perhaps something more; the movie coyly leaves just how close to your imagination, even as it fires it up. It’s at that point that they met Tashi, then a fast-rocketing star.

Soon after the movie opens in 2019, it jumps to the recent past (“two weeks earlier”) and then starts bouncing around back and forth in time like a ball flying over the net, with the New Rochelle match serving as the story’s frame. (The 2019 date may be a nod to an epic men’s final at Wimbledon that year in which, after nearly five hours, Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer.) Turning back the clock can be a cheap way to make movies appear more complex than they actually are. Here, though, as the story leaps from past to present — from when Tashi, Art and Patrick were feverishly young to when they were somewhat less young — time begins to blur, underscoring that the passing years haven’t changed much.

All three leads in “Challengers” are very appealing, and each brings emotional and psychological nuance to the story, whatever the characters’ current configuration. They’re also just fun to look at, and part of the pleasure of this movie is watching pretty people in states of undress restlessly circling one another, muscles tensed and desiring gazes ricocheting. Guadagnino knows this; he’s in his wheelhouse here, and you can feel his delight in his actors. With the cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, he shows them off beautifully, caressing them in light so that they look lit from within. Even during the fantastically staged and shot — and very sweaty — New Rochelle match, they glow.

Much like her character, Zendaya gives the movie a jolt of glamour, which draws you to Tashi, even as the writing keeps her frustratingly distant. Tashi is, in many ways, the shrewdest and toughest of the three friends, and it’s she who artfully finesses Art and Patrick to bookend her body, perched on a bed soon after they meet. Zendaya is more convincing off the court than on it. Yet whatever doubts you have about her as a sports sensation are immaterial simply because the actress’s own magnetism is undeniable. Hers is a charismatic force field — call it stardom — that in old Hollywood once turned ordinary mortals into gods.

For his part, Faist opens up the puppyish Art, letting you to see the character’s vulnerability, which makes him sympathetic until it makes him just sad. But it’s O’Connor who pushes the material toward something like depth. O’Connor played such an insufferable version of the young Prince Charles in the series “The Crown” that I had a difficult time separating the actor from his character. Patrick is an altogether different kind of off-putting type; he swaggers and smirks and, in one scene, drops his towel in the sauna. It’s a bit of sly gamesmanship; it’s also flirting. His confidence gives him an erotic charge that fires up Art and Tashi, and neither seems able to quit him even after drama and disaster upend the trio.

That disaster is a big deal, or it’s meant to be, but Guadagnino is better at blissfully gliding along the surfaces of life than he is at digging too far beneath them. Which is fine, really! One of the other pleasures of “Challengers” is that despite some tears, tightened jaws and its fussy chronology, the movie isn’t trying to say anything important, which is a relief. It wants to engage and entertain you, and it does that very nicely. A dreamy movie is sometimes all you want, and if it inspires you to pick up a racket or a date, or just rewatch a delight like Ernst Lubitsch’s 1933 “ Design for Living ,” about a different sexy trio, so much the better.

Challengers Rated R for pillow talk and some discreet lovemaking. Running time: 2 hours 11 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

COMMENTS

Analysis of The Little Prince from a Philosophical Point of View
First of all, "The Little Prince" is a philosophical tale, therefore deep thoughts are hidden behind a simple plot at first glance. The author touches on such eternal topics as good and evil, love and hate, life and death: Antoine helps in expressing their own thoughts such artistic means as metaphor, allegory, symbols and so on.
The Little Prince Critical Evaluation
Critical Evaluation. The Little Prince is one of the world's best-loved books. It has been translated into more than 180 languages (the most translated work in French literature) and has sold ...
The Little Prince Critical Essays
The Little Prince passes on something of the Fox's teaching when he tells Saint-Exupéry that what makes a house, the desert, or the stars beautiful is invisible. Saint-Exupéry recalls his ...
Analysis of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince
By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023. This last novel by the popular French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-44) is ostensibly a children's book, set in the author's familiar and cherished landscape of the Sahara of northern Africa. Although the central character is a pilot, this tale has little to do with actual flight; the ...
The Little Prince Themes and Analysis
Friendship. Friendship requires a great deal of understanding. It is a major theme in the book. We see this in the fox's relationship with the little prince. We see it equally, or even more, in the boy's relationship with the little prince. Creating ties with people comes with consequences and rewards.
The little prince critique paper
The Little Prince is written in a condensed style that is overflowing with symbols, and full understanding of the author's meaning requires careful reading and pondering. Many scholars have published discussions of the specific meanings of the symbols and metaphors that appear in the work (especially baobabs and roses), which are open to ...
Le petit prince (The Little Prince)
SOURCE: A review of The Little Prince in The New Yorker, Vol. 19, May 29, 1943, p. 52. [In the following review, the reviewer describes Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince as overelaborate and ...
Review: The Little Prince
Rich with timeless lessons that are cushioned behind layers of delightful story-telling. The Little Prince is the sort of book that will inspire wonder and reflection, even in the most cynical, and world-weary adult. And so, to end, my favourite quote from this poignant and profound novella: "The most beautiful things in the world cannot be ...
The Strange Triumph of "The Little Prince"
The desert and the rose—his life as an intrepid aviator and his life as a baffled lover—were his inspiration. But between those two experiences, skewering them, dividing them with a line, was ...
The Little Prince: Mini Essays
As the little prince journeys from one planet to another, he finds grown-ups such as the businessman and the geographer to lack creativity and imagination. They can only quantify the world in the dullest of terms. The little prince, on the other hand, acknowledges that the most important qualities in life are invisible and mysterious.
Book Review: "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. "Please," asks the stranger, "draw me a sheep.". And the pilot realizes that when life's events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper….
The Little Prince
Many critics drew parallels between the characters and events of The Little Prince and the life of its author, who wrote the book while living in New York City, having fled the turmoil of World War II in France.Like the narrator, Saint-Exupéry was a pilot who experienced a plane crash in a desert ().His wife, Consuelo, is also said to have had erratic behaviour similar to that of the prince ...
The Little Prince
The Little Prince, fable and modern classic by French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that was published with his own illustrations in French as Le Petit Prince in 1943. The simple tale tells the story of a child, the little prince, who travels the universe gaining wisdom. The novella has been translated into hundreds of languages and has sold some 200 million copies worldwide ...
The Little Prince
The Little Prince was originally translated in English from the title Le Petit Prince, a short and simple novel, an imagination of the French aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The novel was translated into English by Reynal & Hitchcock, published in April 1943. However, it invited an immediate ban from the Vichy Regime ruling France at that time.
The Little Prince movie review (2016)
It helps one overlook the narrative and philosophical repetition that the film is accomplished on a technical level as well. Most notably, the score, co-composed by Hans Zimmer, is a lyrical, lovely piece of work. It carries the viewer along, fluidly tying together the worlds of "The Little Prince" (both the girl's and the story of the ...
The Little Prince- Summary& Critique Essay
The Little Prince Novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Summary and Critique Essay Summary "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a novella that tells the story of a young prince who travels from planet to planet, meeting different inhabitants and learning important life lessons along the way.
The Little Prince Essay
He cares greatly for the rose, and prizes the rose greatly in his heart. Building emotional connection with the rose, The Little Prince learns the importance of nurturing a healthy relationship. The Little Prince's passion and love for the rose show many times throughout the book, when he thinks of her in different situations.
The Little Prince: Full Book Analysis
Full Book Analysis. The Little Prince is a fable-like tale that mingles the story of a lonely, stranded narrator with the story of a young traveler facing his own troubles. The prince's problem, an attempt to understand love, creates an embedded conflict-resolution plot line, but the unnamed pilot, who serves as first-person narrator, is the ...
The Little Prince: Full Book Summary
The Little Prince Full Book Summary. The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. The crash badly damages his airplane and leaves the narrator with very little food or water. As he is worrying over his predicament, he is approached by the little prince, a very serious little blond boy who asks the narrator to draw him a sheep.
The Little Prince Essay Questions
Children, on the other hand, view things without judgment and look at the true beauty in the world. 2. Discuss the little prince and his relationship with the flower. At first, when the flower magically appears on the prince's planet, the prince falls head over heels for it. The flower proclaims its uniqueness and portrays itself as the only ...
The Little Prince Essay Topics
1. The drawings in The Little Prince are arguably just as central to is meaning as its words are. Choose one of the drawings in the book and discuss how it contributes to the story's meaning. 2. The prince implies that the drawing of the sheep will actually come alive back on his home planet. What is the significance of this, in terms of the ...
Film Review: 'The Little Prince'
With: Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Marion Cotillard, Benicio Del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Bud Cort, Paul Giamatti, Riley Osborne, Albert Brooks, Mackenzie Foy, Paul Rudd. (English ...
'Challengers' Review: Game, Set, Love Matches
Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist play friends, lovers and foes on and off the tennis court in Luca Guadagnino's latest.
The Little Prince: Questions & Answers
Eventually, the little prince becomes dejected by her unkindness. The narrator explains: "He had taken seriously words which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.". When the Prince finally decides to leave, the rose is honest with him, assuring him that she does love him. Throughout his journey, he gains wisdom on why his ...

Analysis of The Little Prince from a Philosophical Point of View

Storylines and features of the composition of the tale

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on The Little Prince

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

Literary Theory and Criticism

Analysis of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

Share this:

Related Articles

Themes and Analysis

The Deceptiveness of Adulthood

Curiosity and Proactiveness

Writing Style and Tone in The Little Prince

Analysis of Symbols and Figurative Language in The Little Prince

Analysis of Symbols

The Box Containing the Sheep

The Baobabs

The Beautiful Flower with Four Thorns

Figurative Language

Personification

What major lesson do we learn from The Little Prince ?

What is the biggest realization from The Little Prince ?

What is the central theme of The Little Prince ?

How are baobabs used in The Little Prince ?

What does the shell symbolize?

What is the most ironic thing in the book?

What do the baobabs symbolise?

How was the fox personified in The Little Prince ?

About Chioma Julie

Block Member?

Review: The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

About The Little Prince

About Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4 comments on “Review: The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

The Strange Triumph of “The Little Prince”

Books & Fiction

Book Review: “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Book Details:

Book Review

Share this:

The Little Prince

Summary of The Little Prince

Major Themes in The Little Prince

Major Characters The Little Prince

Writing Style of The Little Prince

Analysis of the Literary Devices in The Little Prince

Post navigation

Movie Reviews

Brian Tallerico

Now playing

Sasquatch Sunset

Girls State

It's Only Life After All

Simon Abrams

Boy Kills World

Lousy Carter

The Little Prince (2016)

Cinematographer (co-cinematographer)

Latest blog posts

Speed Kills: On the 25th Anniversary of Go

Joanna Arnow Made Her BDSM Comedy for You

The Movies That Underwent Major Changes After Their Festival Premiere

Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives Is A Spinoff Stuck In Limbo

The Little Prince

The Little Prince Questions and Answers

Study Guide for The Little Prince

Essays for The Little Prince

Lesson Plan for The Little Prince

Wikipedia Entries for The Little Prince

The Little Prince

Essay Topics

Related Titles

Featured Collections

Film Review: ‘The Little Prince’

Scott Foundas

Popular on Variety