The Little Prince Ð'- A Closer Look

Having read the article The Gift Of Imagination this one

quote best describes imagination in us. "Almost all children

have vivid imaginations. A few retain them. But somewhere

in the process of growing up, most people reject it or learn

to conceal it or deny that they have it, even though they use

it every day." Silver Donald Cameron. As we grow up we

loose our imagination and form ourselves to the "norm" of

society. In the novel The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint

Exupery imagination is evident throughout the entire novel

with the "grown up" and "child". The building blocks in the

novel are: imagination, life of Antoine, novel, movie

comparison, childlike and grownup characteristics, heady

stuff and the secret found on page 87.

Antoine de Saint Exupery is a French man born in Lyon,

France in the year 1900. Being born into a poor

aristocratic family, he became a pilot and worked as a mail

carrier. Antoine had none to very little of a social life. He

traveled to Canada and New York in 1942 with his wife

Consuela. Antoine never considered himself a writer, he

saw himself as a pilot. While working as a pilot Antoine

crashed in the Sahara desert. Most often in coffee shops

Antoine would doodle on the napkins drawing cartoons.

Antoine's friend would keep all of his drawings. Consuela

bought him a doll along with Antoine's drawings "The Little

Prince" was written. While working for the French

government in 1944, Antoine's plane was shot down while

flying in German territory taking pictures. The wreckage

has never been found.

After reading and watching the work The Little Prince, one

should notice some similarities and differences between the

two. The main characters remain the same personality,

setting is in the Sahara desert, and the storyline and other

aspects remain consistent. The general plot with the little

prince moving from one country to another meeting new

people is the same in both. During the Princes journey he

meets the following characters in both works: the pilot, the

businessman, the geographer, the snake, and the fox.

Another similarity between the two is that we see pictures

drawn and the same pictures are shown in the movie.

The Hollywood version and the novel differ. Visually, and

vocally are the two different aspects. During the time of

thirst in the movie the pilot and the little prince find an oasis

while there was an ordinary well in the book. The

characters of the railroad switchman, the tippler and the

general were not included in the film while it was in the

book. The sunset is mentioned forty four times in the book

while it wasn't even touched upon in the film version.

Although having met the businessman in both versions,

there was no mention to "matters of consequence" in the

film. The Hollywood version and the novel have different

content and visual effect.

Throughout the novel we see many childlike characteristics

with the plot and characters. There are many words to

describe children: adventurous, imaginative, loving,

innocent, and creative of course there are many more

words than just those five. These five words are the ones

best illustrate "childlike". Qualities the author tries to show

are: Adventurous: "So then the seventh planet was the

Earth" (Page 67) This quote is more of a general quote that

shows how the Little Prince travelled from planet to planet.

He wasn't afraid and liked to travel. Imaginative: " Be my

friends. I am all alone," he said. "I am all alone Ð'- all alone,"

answered the echo. "What a queer planet!" he thought.

(Page76) This quote shows how the little prince thinks that

someone is asking the same questions that he is, not

knowing it is his echo. Children are also Loving: "If some

one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows

in all the million and millions of stars, it is enough to make

him happy just to look at the stars."(Page 29) The little

prince has one flower for which he cares for and lives