The Little Prince

"Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: 'What does his voice sound like?' 'What games does he like best?' 'Does he collect butterflies?' They ask: 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' 'How much money does his father make?' Only then do they think they know him.”  

Throughout The Little Prince, numbers serve as a shorthand for Saint-Exupéry's critique of society. This is partly because of their association with money, and consequently the greed and materialism that plague the modern world. In this passage, the pilot condemns man's obsession with income and wealth. Even beyond this, Saint-Exupéry suggests that the urge to count and quantify everything is inherently at odds with what makes life meaningful. Relationships transform people who were previously just one among many into unique individuals; as the prince says of the fox: "I've made him my friend, and now he's the only fox in the world" (63). Similarly, in this passage, the pilot suggests seeking out information that is actually particular to a given person, like the sound of his voice. Numbers, however, cannot capture any of this because they imply that every individual is equal to and interchangeable with every other individual.

"But I, unfortunately, cannot see a sheep through the sides of a crate. I may be a little like the grownups. I must have grown old." 

Although the pilot is far more open-minded than the other adults the prince meets in his travels, he has still absorbed some of society's ideas about what is practical and reasonable. This makes him an ideal narrator since he straddles the world of the prince and that of his readers and can therefore function as a kind of translator. Clearly, however, the pilot regrets having lost some of his capacity to imagine freely, and here uses the motif of vision to lament the loss. Unlike the prince, who immediately "sees" what is invisible in the pilot's drawings, the pilot cannot so easily grasp the hidden inner meaning of things.

"It's a question of discipline […] When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. You must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they're very young. It's tedious work, but very easy." 

The conversation about the baobabs is significant for several reasons. First, the baobabs themselves can be read as a symbol of Nazism, which similarly seemed harmless in its early stages. Beyond that, however, the passage reflects the prince's views on personal responsibility. The "discipline" the prince demonstrates in caring for his planet is important not only when it comes to cultivating good personal habits, but also in the context of any interpersonal relationship. The idea that love and friendship carry certain obligations is central to the story. Finally, the prince's account of uprooting the baobabs also touches on the connection between time and meaning in The Little Prince. Because life itself is finite, time is especially valuable, and anything one spends that time on becomes valuable as well.

"I know a planet inhabited by a red-faced gentleman. He's never smelled a flower. He's never looked at a star. He's never loved anyone. He's never done anything except add up numbers. And all day long he says over and over, just like you, 'I'm a serious man! I'm a serious man!' And that puffs him up with pride. But he's not a man at all—he's a mushroom." 

The man the prince is referring to in this passage is the businessman, who does in fact spend all his time counting the stars that he claims to own and calculating his profits from them. The comparison the prince draws here between the businessman and the pilot is serious because—as the prince makes clear—the businessman has never done anything that would make his life meaningful. He doesn’t appreciate beauty, and he's certainly too self-absorbed to have ever loved anyone. As a result, the prince says that he's not really a human being. Over the course of the story, it becomes increasingly clear that what makes one human—in the sense of distinct individuals rather than animals simply trying to survive—are the meanings man finds and constructs in the world. For the pilot, his encounter with the prince reawakens him to this fact. Whereas in this passage he had snapped at the prince for distracting him from a task necessary for physical survival (fixing his plane), he eventually comes to appreciate things like the well-water for qualities beyond their life-giving properties.

"'I need to put up with two or three caterpillars if I want to get to know the butterflies. Apparently they're very beautiful. Otherwise who will visit me? You'll be far away. As for the big animals, I'm not afraid of them. I have my own claws. 'And she naively showed her four thorns. Then she added, 'Don't hang around like this; it's irritating. You made up your mind to leave. Now go.'" 

As the prince prepares to leave the planet, the rose sheds most of her former pretentiousness and tells him not to worry about covering her with the glass. Her reasoning, as she explains it in this passage, touches on one of the story's key points—namely, that love inevitably opens one up to the possibility of being hurt, but that it is nevertheless worth it. Here, for instance, the flower says she's willing to risk being eaten by caterpillars in order to "get to know the butterflies." The fact that the flower is clearly trying to mask her sadness at the prince's departure further underscores her vulnerability, as does her "naïve" reassurance that she has thorns to protect herself.

"[T]he little prince, wondered, How can he know who I am if he's never seen me before? He didn't realize that for kings, the world is extremely simplified: All men are subjects." 

The problem with the worldview of the king (and other adults) in The Little Prince is not simply that it is illogical, but rather that it doesn't allow him to interact with others on a personal basis. Because he sees everyone simply as a subject, the king has already eliminated the possibility of coming to love someone in the way that, for example, the prince loves the rose—i.e. as a unique and irreplaceable individual.

"'I make you my ambassador,' the king hastily shouted after [the prince]. He had a great air of authority." 

The above passage neatly illustrates the absurdity of the king's claims to power. Although he insists that he rules over everything in the universe, it quickly becomes clear that he can't actually compel anyone or anything to follow his orders. That being the case, he retroactively issues orders for anything that would have happened anyway—in this case, the prince's departure. The illusion of power is ultimately the king's highest priority in his life, which is consequently empty of any real meaning.

"But the vain man did not hear [the prince]. Vain man never hear anything but praise." 

The vain man's inability to understand anything that isn't praise is an extreme case of the close-mindedness that so many adults in The Little Prince display. Just as the adults who see the boa constrictor drawings fail to understand its meaning even when it is made clearly visible to them, so the vain man fails to hear words spoken right next to him. In this way, the passage hints at the relationship between imagination and empathy (or even love) in the novel. Because the vain man's entire worldview centers on himself, he literally can't conceive of anyone having thoughts or feelings that aren't similarly focused on him.

"'And what good does it do you to be rich?'

'It lets me buy other stars, if somebody discovers them.'

The little prince said to himself. This man argues a little like my drunkard."

Of all the adults the prince visits, Saint-Exupéry is perhaps most critical of the businessman. This is in keeping with the story's critique of the greed and materialism of modern society, which—as this passage indicates—strike Saint-Exupéry not only as misguided and meaningless, but as illogical even on their own terms. The businessman's life is a never-ending quest for wealth that he doesn't even take the time to enjoy; he accumulates wealth not to spend it, but simply so that he can accumulate even more wealth. The fact that this "logic" reminds the prince of the drunkard's similarly circular reasoning is especially pointed. A man like the businessman would likely enjoy far more respect from society than the drunkard would, but the prince suggests that they are nevertheless equals when it comes to the pointlessness of their pastimes.

"That's amusing, thought the little prince. And even poetic. But not very serious. The little prince had very different ideas about serious things from those of the grown-ups. 'I own a flower myself,' he continued, 'which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I rake out every week. I even rake out the extinct one. You never know. So it's of some use to my volcanoes, and it's useful to my flower, that I own them. But you're not useful to the stars." 

When the businessman explains that "owning" the stars means locking away a slip of paper with their total number on it, the prince responds with amusement. As he notes in this passage, none of the businessman's actions affect the stars at all, so it seems strange to claim ownership of them. This stands in contrast to the prince's "ownership" of his flower, since the prince's actions have real ability to help (or harm) her. The passage, in other words, critiques the modern obsession with owning wealth and products by revealing how little is actually at stake in this ownership, and consequently how empty of meaning it is.

"Now that man, the little prince said to himself as he continued on his journey, that man would be despised by all the others, by the king, by the very vain man, by the drunkard, by the businessman. Yet he's the only one who doesn’t strike me as ridiculous. Perhaps it's because he's thinking of something besides himself." 

Of all the adults the prince meets (at least before running into the pilot), the lamplighter is the only one he feels he could have been friends with. This is largely because, as he says in this passage, the lamplighter isn't entirely consumed by narcissism. His faithfulness to his orders, despite their ridiculousness, indicates that he is capable of thinking about people besides himself. Furthermore, his dutiful actions (lighting and extinguishing the lamp every "day") resemble the prince's careful tending of his planet, and therefore suggest an ability to take responsibility in friendship as well.

"A geographer doesn't go out to describe cities, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans, and deserts. A geographer is too important to go wandering about. He never leaves his study."

Like many of the other adults in The Little Prince, the geographer is preoccupied with a sense of his own importance. For the prince, however, the geographer's self-absorption comes as a particular disappointment because his profession itself seems to offer so many opportunities to find wonder and beauty in the surrounding world. For the geographer, the rivers, mountains, seas, etc. have no personal significance; in fact, he doesn't even intend to ever see them firsthand. Instead, he sees the natural world simply as a series of facts to record, in much the same way that the businessman counts the stars he "owns."

For Kek, Lou’s farm becomes an escape from the harsh realities of life for a refugee. There he can focus on completing hard, earnest labor that keeps his mind off of wondering about his mother and thinking about his dead relatives. The farm becomes a place where Kek belongs.

The fact that the geographer is only concerned with "eternal things" is significant, given how much emphasis The Little Prince places on impermanence and fragility. Although eternal things—like the desert the pilot has crashed in—certainly can be meaningful, they often gain their meaning in the context of a fleeting experience. At the end of the story, for example, the pilot remarks that for him the Sahara is both "the loveliest and the saddest landscape in the world" (85)because it is where he both met and lost his friend. Much of what the story depicts as meaningful derives its meaning from its temporariness, and the fact that the geographer doesn't recognize this is another sign of his skewed worldview.

"My flower is ephemeral, the little prince said to himself and she has only four thorns with which to defend herself against the world! And I've left her all alone where I live!" 

Despite the geographer's shortcomings, the conversation he has with the prince is a turning point in the latter's story. Up until this point, the prince hadn't realized how vulnerable the rose truly was or what that implied about his own responsibility towards her. The realization that the flower is "ephemeral" causes the prince to begin reconsidering his decision to leave her and, eventually, to do whatever it takes to return to her.

“If the two billion inhabitants of the globe were to stand close together, as they might for some big public event, they would easily fit into a city block that was twenty miles long and twenty miles wide […] Grown-ups, of course, won't believe you. They're convinced they take up much more room.” 

Earth is different from the other planets the prince has visited; in fact, Saint-Exupéry devotes an entire chapter to describing how much larger and more populated it is. When it comes to the attitudes of its inhabitants, however, the Earth is exactly like the other places the prince has travelled to. In this passage, the pilot notes that adults are so convinced of their own importance that they see themselves as much larger than they actually are. In a sense, each adult on Earth lives on his or her own private planet, in the sense of being completely self-absorbed.

"'Oh, I understand just what you mean,' said the little prince, 'but why do you always speak in riddles?

'I solve them all,' said the snake." 

When the snake offers to help the prince return to his home planet, the prince says that he understands the snake's meaning—i.e. that the snake will kill his body so that he can leave Earth. The fact that the prince can see the meaning behind the snake's "riddles" speaks once again to his capacity for imagination, but the snake's response is also significant. The idea that death, as symbolized by the snake, "solves all riddles" might seem morbid, but it actually reflects the role that transience and vulnerability play in giving meaning to life in The Little Prince.

"People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends." 

In this passage, the fox explicitly links the materialism of the modern world to the loss of human connection (and therefore, implicitly, to the loss of much of what makes life meaningful). The fox suggests that people have become unwilling to devote time to developing a relationship, but since it's precisely this investment of time that gives a relationship its meaning, the result it that real friendship has become impossible. His remark that people no longer "learn anything" is also significant because it speaks to man's capacity to grow and change, particularly through interactions with one another. Now, however, people are too close-minded to learn about anything beyond themselves.

"That's [a "rite"] another thing that's been too often neglected […] It's the fact that one day is different from the other days, one hour from the other hours." 

During the prince's taming of the fox, the fox tells him that he ought to arrive for his visit at the same time every day: this will allow the fox to better adjust to his presence, but it will also function as the kind of "rite" he describes in this passage. In addition to resembling the prince's description of his daily routine back on his home planet (pulling up the baobabs, sweeping out the volcanoes, etc.), the description is another example of the importance of time in the story. The fox suggests that people in the modern world have become used to allowing time to slip by. Owing to things like work, each day is much the same as any other, with the end result that it's easy to ignore time's passage. This is problematic, however, because time is one of the most valuable resources one has to expend, particularly on other people.

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

This "secret," which the fox shares with the prince just before the latter leaves, is central to the story's overall ideas about imagination, love, and meaning. Continuing with the motif of vision which first appeared in the episode with the boa constrictor drawings, it argues that physical sight is ultimately less important the ability to see past appearances to the inner meaning of events, people, etc. It also ties this to the "heart"—that is, the conventional seat of love and emotion. This speaks not only to the relationship between imagination and love in the story, but also to the centrality of love to life; it is the connections one forges with others that are "essential" and meaningful.

"You become responsible forever for what you've tamed." 

Taming the fox is a turning point for the prince because it teaches him firsthand that establishing a deep and meaningful connection with another person carries certain responsibilities. In taming the fox, the prince fundamentally alters his experience of the world: where he was once only concerned with survival, the fox comes to appreciate intangible qualities like love and beauty (for instance, the wheat that reminds him of the prince). In fact, the fox in some sense becomes an individual in the context of his relationship with the prince since he previously shared exactly the same concerns as any other fox. Although the fox doesn't regret the transformation he has experienced, he does warn the prince that inducing this change in someone else is not something to take lightly. It's largely as a result of this conversation that the prince realizes he has an obligation to return to his flower, whom he has similarly "tamed."

"What moves me so deeply about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower—the image of a rose shining within him like the flame within a lamp, even when he's asleep…And I realized he was even more fragile than I had thought." 

The pilot's thoughts about the prince on their trek to the well are a measure of how he himself has changed over the course of the story. The image of the rose "shining within" the prince parallels other images of hidden and nested objects in the book—the elephant in the boa constrictor, the well in the desert, the sheep in the crate, etc. The fact that the pilot is now able to "see" this image of the prince's devotion reflects his reawakened capacity for imagination and love. It's also significant that the prince's feelings for the flower make the pilot newly aware of his "fragility," since it underscores Saint-Exupéry's ideas about the vulnerability love entails. 

"That water was more than merely a drink. It was born of our walk beneath the stars, of the song of the pulley, of the effort of my arms. It did the heart good, like a present. When I was a little boy, the Christmas-tree lights, the music of midnight mass, the tenderness of people's smiles made up, in the same way, the whole radiance of the Christmas present I received." 

Up until this point, the pilot's desire to find water was purely a matter of survival; he only had eight days of water with him when he crashed, and he realized he would soon die if he couldn't find a well. Once at the well, however, he finally realizes what the prince had tried to explain in his anecdote about the salesclerk selling water—that there's a value to water (or anything else in life) over and apart from its practical value. The prince himself does not seem to need water to live, but he nevertheless takes pleasure in the experience of drinking. What's more, as the pilot notes in this passage, this pleasure is not simply physical, but rather a culmination of the time they have devoted to finding and drawing the water. In other words, the excerpt as a whole reinforces the idea that mere survival is ultimately less important than the ability to find meaning in life.

As Kek waits at the airport to reunite with his mother, he reflects on how much he has grown in his time in America. He has thrown his lot in to this culture and will become a part of the vast diversity that is the United States. More so, he will be able to help his mother adjust to their new country.

As the prince prepares to leave, he consoles the pilot with a "present"(77)—the new association the pilot will have between the stars and the prince's laughter. This is the culmination of Saint-Exupéry's use of stars as a motif to explore the way individuals find and create meaning in their lives. As the prince says here, the significance of the stars varies from person to person, but the pilot's will be especially meaningful because they'll be imbued with the weight and emotion of his relationship with the prince.