Analysis on the Little Prince Using Jungian Archetypes

ANALYSIS ON THE LITTLE PRINCE USING JUNGIAN ARCHETYPES

Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little prince was a short story about a Little Prince the narrator met

when he was stranded on Sahara desert. Together with illustration it told the readers about the journey of the

Little Prince and his observation about grown-ups and things that the Little Prince encountered. Using the

Jungian literary lens this paper will analyze the character of the little prince, his journey, and some of the

symbolic archetypes present on the story.

As the protagonist of the story, the Little Prince immediately embodied the character archetype of the

Hero. The hero whose life is a series of well-marked adventures and leaves the familiar to enter an unfamiliar and

challenging world. This description seemed to fit the Little Prince, however, as the story progresses he seemed

to portray more qualities of Wise Old Man. Throughout the story the Little prince showed intelligence and wisdom.

His insights was logical and based on the things that he had seen and experienced. Also, his physiological

description contributed, specifically the color of his hair, which resembled the yellow color of the wheat, and the

yellow color archetype signifies enlightenment and wisdom. This details gave texture to the character of the Little

Prince and it made him more than just a child.

On the odyssey of the Little Prince, it resembled The Journey situational archetype. The archetype of The

Journey depicts the hero in a state of search for knowledge that will help save his kingdom. This seems appropriate

in the condition of the Little Prince when he started his journey but not to save his planet but because the Little

Prince wanted to remove the doubt he felt evident on the texts: “So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was

inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt.” And his decision to search for knowledge to help clear his love for his

flower was fueled by his own thoughts: “…I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not

by words.” This texts from the story supports that the Little Prince was in pursuit for a growth of understanding

of things that will strengthen his love for his flower.

Last, on the symbolic archetype on the story, this paper will focus on the water vs. desert archetypes. The water

vs. desert archetype was immediately present on the start of the story from the narrator’s description of his

situation: “… I had an accident with my plane