The Little Prince

The novella, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery is about a pilot who crashes in the Sahara Desert. While trapped, he meets a mysterious Little Prince who asks him to draw a sheep. Over the course of eight days, he learns that the Little Prince is from a distant asteroid named B-612. The Little Prince left his planet because of a rose. He retells his visits to six other planets full of grown-ups, who he isn’t fond of. He then visits the planet Earth in search of humans. While on Earth, he learns the importance of his rose through the taming of a fox. He eventually found the narrator and they become friends. Throughout this book, the Little Prince recounts essential lessons from relationships he has learned and passes them onto the narrator. Therefore, the theme of this book is that love is the result of relationships and taming.

One major example is the relationship between the Little Prince and the rose. Initially, the Little Prince was wary of the rose, believing that it might be a baobab seedling. When she blossomed, he was completely taken with her. He meticulously took care of her every need, even though: “...she was not any too modest...” (Page 33). The Little Prince was willing to overlook her faults because he cares for her. Eventually the rose is the reason why he leaves the planet. The distance doesn’t affect his relationship because his thoughts constantly go back to the rose. He worried that the sheep would eat her and if that happened, his “..stars will be darkened” (Page 30). He would find comfort from stargazing because he knew his rose was somewhere in in the sky. After the Little Prince tamed the fox, he finally understands why his rose was so important. She may be an ordinary rose, but she means more to him because that rose is who he made a connection with: “But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses” (Page 87). The Little Prince understands that his love for the rose came from the time he spent watering her, taking care of her, and just talking with her. His memories of the rose differentiates her from the thousands of ordinary roses. His love for his rose is the main reason why he wants to return to his planet.

Another example of love being the result of relationships is when the Little Prince tames the fox. When they first the meet, the fox refuses to play with the Little Prince. He says, “To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other” (Page 80). In the beginning, they meant nothing to each other. They were just another fox and just another boy to the other. The process of taming created the relationship between the fox and the Little Prince. The Little Prince spent days being near the fox and the fox began to look forward for the Little Prince. Taming changed the Little Prince’s meaning to the fox. The fox explains: “Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Your will call me, like music, out of my burrow” (Page 83). Because of this taming, the fox and the Little Prince mean something to each other. Their friendship is unique and won’t be like any other. The taming created a